XVII. NOTES ON CRUSTACEA DECAPODA 

 IN THE INDIAN MUSEUM. 



XI. Atyidae of the genus Par at y a {=Xiphocaridina). 



By Stanley Kemp, B.A., Superintendent, 

 Zoological Survey of India. 



Bouvier has shown that the West Indian Xiphocaris elongata 

 (Guerin) differs in several important structural characters from the 

 species, previously referred to the same genus, found in Eastern Asia, 

 Australia and New Zealand and has proposed for the latter the 

 generic na.me Xiphocaridina. But Miers in 1882, when recording 

 certain Japanese Atyids as Atyephyra? compressa, noted that the 

 species was probably to be distinguished generically from Brito- 

 Capello's Atya'ephyra by the presence of exopods on all five 

 thoracic legs '; and he suggested for the Japanese form the generic 

 name Paratya. There can be no doubt that Miers' specimens are 

 generically identical with those on which Bouvier based his Xipho- 

 caridina with the result that the latter name, by far the more ap- 

 propriate of the two, must lapse. 



Genus Paratya, Miers. 



1868. Afyephyra, von Martens, Arch.f. NaturgescJi., XXXIV, p. 51 (in part : 



not Atya'ephyra, Brito-Capello). 

 1880. Miersia, Kingsley, Proc. Acad. Sci. Philadelphia, 187Q, p. 416 (in 



part). 2 

 1882. Paratya, Miers, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. (5) IX, p. 194. 

 1895. Xiphocaris, Ortmann, Proc. Acad. Sci. Philadelphia, 1894, p. 400 (in 



1905. Xiphocaris, Bouvier, An)i. Sci. France Belgiqtie, XXXIX, p. 60 (in 



,.part). ... ■ , 



1909. Xipliocaridina, Bouvier, Comptes Rendus Acad. Sci., Paris, p. 1729. 

 1912. Xiphocaridina, Kemp, Rec. Ind. Mus., VII, p. 113. 



Only two species which can be referred to the genus Paratya 

 have hitherto been recognised, viz. Paratya compressa (de Haan), 

 described from Japan and since recorded from Korea, Flores, Aus- 

 tralia and Norfolk I. and P. curvirostris (Heller) from New Zea- 

 land, Chatham I. and Upper Assam. 



I Miers was evidently unaware that von Martens in 1872 (Arch./. Natur- 

 gesch., XXXVIII, i, p. 139J had founded the genus Xiphocaris on this very 

 character. Xiphocaris, however, was based on specimens from the West Indies 

 and, as Bouvier has shown, is distinguished from the Pacific genus by the greater 

 number of branchiae and other important characters. 



* The type of this genus is Risso's Ephyra pelagica, probably a Hoplophorid. 



