SYNOPSIS OF THE TRUE CRABS (BRACHYURA) 

 OF MONTEREY BAY, CALIFORNIA 



In this paper are included all of the Brachyura or true crabs known 

 from Monterey Bay or from points near enough to make their occurrence 

 there probable, and it is hoped that the keys and figures here given will 

 render easy their identification. It is intended that this shall be one of a 

 series of papers of similar scope dealing with the fauna of Monterey Bay, 

 with a view toward placing at the disposal of workers at the Marine Bio- 

 logical Laboratory an easy means of becoming acquainted with the inver- 

 tebrates of that region. Preliminary work has been done in several 

 groups, and in the case of the Anomura and the Macrura, the writer hopes 

 to present reports in the near future. 



Monterey Bay occupies an open semicircular indentation of the coast 

 line, a little over one hundred miles south of San Francisco, measuring 

 about twenty-five miles from Santa Cruz on the north to Point Pinos on 

 the south, and perhaps ten miles from a line drawn between these two 

 points to the mouth of the Salinas River on the east. The northern and 

 eastern shores of the bay are low and sandy, but from a point near the 

 town of Monterey to Point Pinos and thence south nearly to the town of 

 Carmel, some ten miles, the coast is, with the exception of a few small 

 sandy beaches, extremely rugged, furnishing innumerable rocky tide-pools 

 that form an unusually rich collecting ground, not only for Crustacea but 

 for all kinds of invertebrates. 



The Stanford Marine Biological Laboratory is located at Pacific 

 Grove, about midway of the southern shore of the bay, and as this has 

 been the central point for shore collecting, the greater part of the work 

 has been confined to four or five miles of the coast, reaching from near 

 Monterey to some distance south of Point Pinos, though a few trips 

 have been made to points north or south of these limits. 



Considerable dredging has been done at moderate depths, thirty 

 fathoms and under, from a small launch. Off the eastern shore the bottom 

 is sandy ; this has been little worked, but has yielded some valuable speci- 

 mens. Off the town of Monterey in the southeastern corner of the bay 

 there is a large area of hard blue clay, rich in burrowing mollusks, which 

 has proved a good field for Crustacea, and here most of the dredging has 

 been done. Near Point Pinos the bottom is rocky, and would undoubted- 



