Carcinological Fauna of India. 281 



Parthenope (Parthenomerus) efflorescens, n. sp. 



Carapace triangular, not quite f as long as broad ; its entire sur- 

 face, above and below, as also that of the sternum, of the abdomen (in 

 the female 1, and of all the exposed appendages — from the eye-stalks 

 to the last pair of ambulatory legs, covered with a lace-work, or frosting, 

 formed by the partial contact of very delicate crisply paxilliform gra- 

 nules. There are no large tubercles, and, except on the arm hand and 

 fingers, no spines. On the arm, namely, there are two or three teeth 

 with acicular tips, on both the lower-inner, and the upper-inner borders; 

 on the hand there are three needle-like teeth on the upper-inner, and 

 three on the lower-inner borders; and the fingers are everywhere beset 

 with long needle-like spines. The rostrum is nearly vertically deflexed. 



Only one cheliped remains in our unique specimen ; and it, which 

 is a little over twice the length of the carapace, has a most curious 

 tapering form : the meropodite is huge and thigh-shaped, decreasing 

 in size distally ; the carpus is slenderer than the end of the meropodite ; 

 and the hand is still slenderer than the carpus: the fingers are long — 

 nearly as long as the palm — are extremely slender, and, as already 

 noted, are beset with long slender spines. 



A single female, from the Andaman Sea, 36 fathoms. 



Crtptopodia, Edw. 



Cryptopodia, Milne-Edwards, Hist. Nat. Crust., I. 360. 

 Cryptopodia, Miers, Journ. Linn. Soc. (Zool.), XIV. p. 669. 

 Cryptopodia, Miers, 'Challenger' Brachyura, p. 101. 



Carapace very broadly triangular, with very large lateral clvpei- 

 form vaulted expansions which completely conceal the ambulatory legs, 

 and are prolonged posteriorly far beyond the base of the abdomen ; a 

 large space between the gastric and the cardiac regions is triangular 

 and concave. The rostrum is nearly horizontal, spatuliform and very 

 prominent. The pterygostomian regions are smooth, not ridged. The 

 orbits are very small, nearly circular, with a suture in the superior 

 margin. The epistome is well developed ; the antennulary fossa? are 

 narrow and somewhat oblique. The abdomen, in the male, is five- 

 jointed ; the third to fifth segments coalescent. The eyes are very 

 small and retractile. The basal antennal joint is slightly dilated and 

 does not nearly reach the internal orbital hiatus, which is filled by the 

 second joint. The buccal cavity and external maxillipeds are small. 

 The ischium-joint of the maxillipeds is not produced at its antero-internal 

 angle ; the merus is distally truncated, with the antero-external angle 

 slightly produced, the interior margin notched below the antero-internal 

 angle. The chelipeds are nearly as in Lambrus ; the merus-joint has a 

 wing-like lobe on the posterior margin near to the distal extremity ; the 

 127 



