14 TRUE CRABS OF MONTEREY BAY 



Tribe BRACHYURA. 

 Subtribe DROMIACEA. 

 Superfamily DROMIIDEA. 

 Family DROMIID^E. 



No representative of this family has been recorded, as far as I am 

 aware, from the west coast of North America north of the Mexican 

 boundary. Hypochoncha panamensis is recorded by Faxon* from the 

 west coast of Panama, but beyond this I do not know that any of the 

 Dromiidae have been reported from Mexico or Central America. It is 

 therefore no inconsiderable addition to our western crustacean fauna to 

 record a new Dromid from Monterey Bay. Two specimens were ob- 

 tained in the summer of 1906 while dredging in shallow water, and 

 although special effort was made during the two following summers to 

 obtain more material these remain the only examples. The species proves 

 to be a very close relative of Dromidia antillensis Stimpson, and further 

 knowledge of its distribution may show it to be one of the numerous pairs 

 of species found on opposite sides of the isthmus. 



Genus DROMIDIA Stimpson. 



Dromidia Stimpson, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., p. 63, 1858 (Type Dromidia 

 hirsutissima (Lamark)). 



Stimpson in defining this genus says,t "In the sternum of the female 

 the copulatory sulci are produced, and approximated at their extremities 

 in a more or less tuberculiform projection situated between the bases of 

 the chelipeds." According to Miss Rathbun this description should be 

 modified, as the sulci do not always end in a single tubercle. In the speci- 

 men here described the sulci end in distinct tubercles, and it is interesting 

 to observe that in the most closely related form, D. antillensis, the single 



* Faxon, Memoirs Harvard Mus. Comp. Zool., xviii, 237. 



t Stimpson, Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Phila., 1858, 225. Report on the Crustacea 

 collected by the North Pacific Exploring Expedition, Smithsonian Miscellaneous 

 Collections, No. 1717, 170. 



