374 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OP FISHERIES. 



In questions of nomenclature the authors have adhered rigidly to the "Code of 

 Nomenclature" of the American Ornithologists' Union. 



As is usual in papers of this nature, the synonymies of this paper have proved to be 

 one of the most difificult and laborious parts of its preparation. It has been found 

 impracticable to include citations to all the literature, but such citations as are given 

 have been carefully verified and a conscientious effort has been made to include all that 

 may be of value and to exclude all that have no special bearing on the question at hand. 



The classification adopted is that of Borradaile ° and the characters of the families, 

 suborders, and tribes have been taken almost bodily from his paper. The sequence of 

 families and genera follows the one adopted by the United States National Museum. 



As far as possible the important diagnostic characters of the famiUes and genera 

 have been incorporated in the keys and are often repeated, in part, in the species 

 descriptions. In addition to this, because of the somewhat new classification that has 

 been adopted, brief diagnoses of the families and higher groups have been included in 



dactyl 



propodut 



eplpod 



'ar/aus 



Fig. I. — A crustacean leg showing epipod and Fig. 2. — A subchelate 

 exopod. limb of a crustacean. 



Fig. 3.— Chela of a crab. 



the body of the paper. It has not been thought necessary to include diagnoses of the 

 genera as most of these have been sufficiently defined in Dr. Rathbun's report on the 

 Brachyura and Macrura of Porto Rico, a paper which should be in the hands of anyone 

 who attempts to work with the decapod crustaceans of our southern coast. 



Throughout the progress of their work, both authors have received the assistance 

 of their associates in the Beaufort laboratory and the permanent force at the station 

 on occasions too numerous and in ways too varied to be itemized. It is a pleasure, how- 

 ever, to acknowledge the many evidences of friendly interest that have been shown. 

 In a more definite maimer we are rnider many obligations to the Division of Marine 

 Invertebrates of the United States National Museum, where Dr. Mary J. Rathbun, 

 Dr. J. E. Benedict, and Mr. Waldo L. Schmitt have given us invaluable assistance. 

 Through their kindness it has been possible to compare our materials with the accurately 

 labeled specimens in the National Museum, to consult literature that otherwise would 

 have been obtained only with great difficulty, and to obtain a final settlement of numerous 

 perplexing questions of identification and nomenclature. 



« Annals and Magazine of Natural History, ser. 7, vol. xdc, p. 457-486. 1907. 



