Alcock, Bouvier giving support to this opinion by the sutural or other
divisional lines in _Potamobius_, _Nephrops_, _Thalassina_, and various
fossil genera. Not all questions of classification internal to this
division are yet finally settled. Between the Brachyura and Macrura some
authors uphold an order Anomura, though in a much restricted sense, the
labours of Huxley, Boas, Alcock and conjointly Alphonse Milne-Edwards
and Bouvier, having resulted in restoring the Dromiidea and Raninidae to
the Brachyura, among which de Haan long ago placed them. The French
authors argue that from the macruran lobsters (_Nephropsidae_) anciently
diverged two lines: one leading through the Dromiidea to the genuine
Brachyura; or crabs, the other independently to the Anomura proper,
which may conveniently be named and classed as _Macrura anomala_. Spence
Bate maintained that the Schizopoda ought not to form a separate order,
but to be ranged as a macruran tribe, "more nearly allied to the
degraded forms of the Penaeidea than to those of any other group"
(_"Challenger" Reports_, "Macrura," p. 472, 1888). According to Sars,
the Sympoda (or Cumaceans), in spite of their sessile eyes, have closer
affinities with the stalk-eyed orders. H. J. Hansen and others form a
distinct order Tanaidea for the decidedly anomalous group called by Sars
_Isopoda chelifera_.
1. BRACHYURA.--For the present, as of old, the true Brachyura are
divided into four tribes: _Cyclometopa_, with arched front as in the
common eatable crab; _Catometopa_, with front bent down as in the
land-crabs and the little oyster-crab; _Oxyrhyncha_, with sharpened
beak-like front as in the various spider-crabs; _Oxystomata_,
including the Raninidae, and named not from the character of the front
but from that of the buccal frame which is usually narrowed forwards.
In these tribes the bold and active habits, the striking colours, or
the fantastic diversities of structure, have so long attracted remark
that recent investigations, while adding a multitude of new species
and supplying the specialist with an infinity of new details, have not
materially altered the scientific standpoint. New light, however, has
been thrown upon the "intellectual" capacity of Crustacea by the proof
that the spider-crabs deliberately use changes of raiment to harmonize
with their surroundings, donning and doffing various natural objects
as we do our manufactured clothes. Others have the power of producing
sounds, one use to which they put this faculty being apparently to
signal from their burrow in the sand that they are "not at home" to an
inopportune visitor. Deep-sea exploration has shown that some species
have an immensely extended range, and still more, that species of the
same genus, and genera of the same family, though separated by great
intervals of space, may be closely allied in character. A curious
effect of parasitism, well illustrated in crabs, though not confined
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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