TRAKSACTIOAS OF SECTION C. 697 



The existence of Cretaceous beds in Canada has long been known, and the 

 coalfields of Nanaimo and Coiuox, on Vancouver Island, have been correlated with 

 the Cretaceous series, as well as tbose of Queen Charlotte Island, and that of 

 Alberta eastward of the Hocky Mountains. 



The fossils were described by F. B. Meek in 1857, by Dr. B. F. Shumard iu 

 1858, by Professor II. Y. Hind iu 1859, Dr. Hector in 1861, Mr. ^\. C4abb in 

 1864. These are all descrijitions of characteristic Cretaceous mollusca. Only two 

 Crustacea are mentioned, namely, a decapod crustacean, provisionally named 

 Hoploparia Dulmenensis, from the jSiobara- Beaton grou]) of Manitoba, and a long- 

 tailed decapod from the Pierre-Fox Hills, or Montana formation. These have not 

 been seen by the present writer. 



The species now recorded comprise — 



1. Several e.rmnples of a small burrowing form of decapod-macrouran crusta- 

 cean, belonging to the Callumansidce. and common in the chalk of Maastricht and 

 Faxoe, and the Greensaud of Colin Glen. Belfast. 



The Vancouver Island form is named C:tUianassa Whiteavesii. 



2. The second is a form of brachyuran decapod, belonging to the family 

 Corystida, and is represented by two imperfect carapaces, one of which shows the 

 frontal portion well preserved, and is evidently closely related to the genera 

 Eucorystes and Falceocorystes from the Greensand and Gault of England, and 

 especially with Falceocorystes Broderipi, from the Gault of Folkestone. I propose 

 to name this after the discoverer as Falceocorystes Harveyi. The specimens were 

 obtained from the Cretaceous beds of Comox River, Vancouver Island. 



3. This form is the most abundant of the crabs met with, and is nearly allied 

 to Plagiophthalmus, but its exact position is somewhat doubtful. 



Mr. Harvey writes that he has found this small crab everywhere in the district 

 of Vancouver's Island, where there are marine Cretaceous beds and fossils. I have 

 named it (provisionally) Flayiophthalmus (.«') vancouvere7isis. 



4. The fourth specimen is a crab allied to the genus Homola, and is from 

 Queen Charlotte Island, Skidegate Channel, west of Alliford Bay, and was 

 obtained by Mr. J. Richardson. It may be compared with the genus Frosopon 

 (von Meyer), from the Jurassic, with several forms from the Chalk of Faxoe, and 

 ■with Iloinolopsis Edwardsii, from the Gault of Folkestone. I have named it (pro- 

 visionally) Homolopsis (?) Richardsoni, after the discoverer. 



These crabs occur in concretionary nodules in the Cretaceous beds of Vancouver, 

 and in black coarse nodules on the beach at Queen Charlotte Island, but they 

 have not been removed far from the parent rock. 



It is interesting to notice the close approximation between these North-West 

 American Cretaceous forms of Crustacea and those from the same horizon in Europe, 

 and it seems to indicate that even so late as Cretaceous times the same marine 

 fauna existed over a far wider area than it at present covers. This is true, also, 

 of the abundant molluscan fauna occurring in the same series of beds over very 

 widely separated areas of the North American continent, from Manitoba in the 

 east to Vancouver in the west, many of the genera (and perhaps the species also) 

 being found in our own Cretaceous beds. 



[Diagrams of the new forms were exhibited.] 



11. Inlerim Report on the Registration of Type Specimens. 



12. Twenty-third Report on Erratic Blocks. — See Reports, p. 430. 



