162 GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY OF THE WEST INDIES. 



Callinectes, 1 the genus of our common edible blue crab, i8 abundant 

 in America and West Africa, rarer in the Indo-Pacific, and has been 

 found fossil in the Virginia Miocene. 



Recent Podophthalmus 2 inhabit the Indo-Pacific region and one of 

 the two living species occurs also in the post-Tertiary of Celebes and 

 Java. Other fossil species placed in this genus have been later removed 

 to different genera. 



Zanthopsis 3 is wholly a fossil genus and contains various species, 

 beginning in the Cretaceous and distributed in Europe and Brazil. 



Pilumnus* is a Recent genus containing about 150 species and 

 flourishes in nearly all temperate and tropical waters. It has not 

 before been reported as fossil. 



The new genus Archceopilumnus is a near relative of Pilumnus. 



Panopeus* is said to occur from the Cretaceous to the present day. 

 It is the principal genus of the mud crabs of our coasts, and occurs 

 rarely in the eastern Atlantic. 



The genus Sandomingia is erected for a form allied to the fiddler 

 crabs (Uca = Gelasimus) which to-day have an almost world-wide 

 distribution, especially in warmer regions, and are also found fossil in 

 southern Asia. 



Parthenope* ( = Lambrus 7 ) is a genus widely distributed in the sea, 

 and dates from the Eocene. 



Mesorhcea* is rare in middle America and has not before been found 

 fossil. 



NOTES ON THOSE FAMILIES REPRESENTED BY MATERIAL FOR 

 WHICH IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DESIGNATE A GENUS. 



The Cragonidse originate in the Jurassic and are very abundant to- 

 day. The telson described below is characteristic of the family, but 

 of no one genus known. 



The Eryonidae are among the oldest decapods, going back to the 

 Triassic. The West Indian specimen has the curious curved and bent 

 form of the ischium of the large cheliped in that family. 



RELATIONS OF THE WEST INDIAN FAUNA. 



The greater number of the genera and families represented in the 

 West Indian Tertiary fauna have to-day a wide distribution, as also 

 have the genera most closely akin to the new or purely fossil genera, as 

 Calappella, Archceopilumnus , Sandomingia, and Zanthopsis. A few 



1 Stimpson, Ann. Lye. Nat. Hist. New York, vol. 7, p. 220, 1860. 



'Lamarck, Syst. Anim. sans Vert., p. 152, 1801. 



M'Coy, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 2, vol. 4, p. 162, 1849. 



4 Leach, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, vol. 11, pp. 309 and 321, 1815. 



8 Milne-Edwards, Hist. Nat. Crust., vol. 1, p. 403, 1834. 



8 Weber, Nomenclator entomologicus, p. 92, 1795. 



7 Leach, Trans. Linn. Soc. London, vol. 11, pp. 308 and 310, 1815. 



3 Stimpson, Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 2, p. 135, 1871. 



