The Crustaceans of South Australia

FULL descriptions and good illustrations of all the South Australian Malacostraca are given in this useful book. It is intentionally written in a popular way, and quite untrained naturalists should be able to identify any species, whilst the specialist is greatly helped in having this book for reference. The malacostracan fauna of South Australia is large and of great interest, and obviously many problems are only waiting for the worker to elucidate them. This seems specially the case with the life histories, so little being known about the larval forms and the few notes given suggesting so much. Some of the Reptantia hatch in a very late stage of development. It is well known that members of the family Potamonidse hatch as forms very like the parent, the truly larval stages taking place within the egg. In South Australia we find other crabs with the same peculiarities. Thus some of the Dromiidæ are known to hatch as tiny crabs, having no free-swimming stage and sheltering under the body of the parent; other species with very large eggs are probably similar.The Crustaceans of South Australia.By Herbert M. Hale. (Handbooks of the Flora and Fauna of South Australia, issued by the British Science Guild (South Australian Branch), and published by favour of the Honourable the Premier.) Part 1. Pp. 201. (Adelaide: Harrison Weir, 1927.) 5s.