IQ15.] Fauna of the Chilka Lake : Crustacea Decapoda. 243 



The larger chelipede of the female, which de Man was unable to examine in the 

 material at his disposal, is as large as that of the adult male; but the carpus, 

 instead of being smooth, is coarsely and irregularly granulate, the granules forming 

 definite rows or groups near the distal margin. The palm also bears definite granules 

 on its upper edge and on the outer surface at the base of the fingers. 



The figure given by de Man is a trifle misleading, for the species is represented 

 a little longer and less transverse than it really is and there is only a faint indication 

 of the transverse granular ridge in the vicinity of the third tooth of the antero-lateral 

 margin. This ridge, which is conspicuous in all the specimens, is of some importance, 

 as it is absent in the closely alhed species H. afvicana, de Man.' In our specimens 

 the chelae are of a uniform dull yellowish or brownish colour, with the fingers black 

 from tip to base ; I have not seen any individual in which tlie colour resembles that 

 shown in de Man's figure. 



Heteropanope indica is represented in the collection by twenty specimens. The 

 carapace in the largest example, a male, is 152 mm. in length and 222 mm. in 

 breadth. In ovigerous females the carapace varies from 96 to I4"4 mm. in length. 



With the exception of a single individual found on a post, placed to mark the 

 position of the deep water passage near Satpara, all the specimens were obtained on 

 the oyster-bed in the vicinity of Manikpatna. They were found living in the dead 

 and gaping shells and in the chinks and crannies between them and were obtained 

 both when the water was fresh and when it was as salt as the Bay of Bengal near the 

 mouth of the lake. The ovigerous females were taken in the months of March and 

 December. 



A single specimen was taken by Dr. Annandale in the Ennur backwater, near 

 Madras, in January 1915, also among oysters. 



The species was hitherto known only from the two type specimens, obtained in 

 the Mergui Archipelago. 



Genus LEIPOCTEN, nov. 



Carapace but little broader than long, subquadrilateral, slightly convex both fore 

 and aft and from side to side, not or scarcely areolated, sparsely tuberculate and 

 densely tomentose. Antero-lateral borders entire except for isolated tubercles, or cut 

 into one or two blunt crenulate lobes in addition to outer orbital angles. Postero- 

 lateral borders very short. 



Front rather less than a third the greatest breadth of carapace, slightly deflexed, 

 not notched in the middle line ; the lateral angles prominent in a facial view. 



Fronto-orbital border four-fifths the breadth of carapace. Orbits large, without 

 fissures or sutures. Basal antennal segment short and broad, its inner angle touch- 

 ing the front, the flagellum standing in the orbit. 



Antennular region and epistome very short in a fore and aft direction ; the latter 

 almost obliterated, especially in the middle where the front almost touches the strongly 

 rounded anterior margin of the buccal cavern. Crests of endostome, defining the 



De Man, Bull. Mus. (.VHist. nat. Paris, VIII, p. 244, text-figs, i, 2 (1902). 



