Henry Woodward — Fossil C rah from Mekran Coast. 305 



Miss Jelly (following Pergens) regards M. Lacroixii of Audouiu 

 and Busk as referable to M. reticulum (Linne). 



Membranipora Lacroixii has a wide geographical and geological 

 range, as the following records will show : — 



Geographical distribution. British (Hincks), Mediterranean (Sa- 

 vigny), Florida (Smitt), St. Lawrence (Whiteaves), New Zealand 

 (Waters). 



Fossil. Coralline and Red Crag (Busk and Bell) ; Miocene and 

 Pliocene of Austria and Hungary (Manzoni and Reuss) ; Pliocene 

 of Italy (Manzoni, Waters. Neviani) and of Rhodes (Pergens) ; 

 Post- Pliocene (Dawson). 



Note. — The specimen is not well preserved, and the characters, 

 in part, are somewhat obscure. The figure has been drawn from 

 a photograph, the detail being restored. 



IV. — Note on a Fossil Crab and a Gkoup of Balani discovered 

 IN Concretions on the Beach at Okmara Headland, Mekran 

 Coast. 



By Henry "Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., F.G.S. 



HAVING been desired by my friend Miss Caroline Birley to 

 examine two Crustaceans in nodules from the Mekran Coast — 

 part of a much larger series, mostly enclosing fossil shells, described 

 by Mr. R. B. Newton, F.G.S. (see ante, pp. 293-303)— I gladly 

 comply with the request to add a note thereon to his paper. 



The first concretion, when broken open, displays the dorsal 

 aspect in impression and counterpart of a small crab, 5^ cm. broad 

 by 3 cm. deep, having one long, slender, forcipated chela, imperfectly 

 preserved, measuring nearly 5 cm. in length ; and part of one of 

 the fifth posterior pair of feet, adapted for swimming, showing it to 

 have been near to the family Portunid^, to which our common 

 shore-crabs of the genus Portunus belong. None of these, however, 

 can be satisfactorily compared with the fossil crab from Ormara, 

 which is certainly referable to another genus. 



In Portunus the carapace is only slightly broader than deep, the 

 latero-anterior margin having four or five serrations of equal size ; 

 there is no prominent costal spine. In our fossil the carapace is 

 compressed vertically and greatly expanded laterally, being armed 

 at each angle with a prominent costal spine, while a series probably 

 of eight (?) lesser serrations (the points of which are broken ofi" in 

 our specimen) fringe the regularly arched convexity of the latero- 

 anterior border from the orbit to the costal spine, below which the 

 postero-lateral margin is concave and the posterior border straight. 



These features, added to the details of the carapace itself, enable 

 us to refer it to the genus Neptunus of De Haan (see " Fauna 

 Japonica "). 



In describing two new species from the Eocene of Kutch and Sind, 

 the late Dr. Ferdinand Stoliczka wrote : ' " The species of Neptunus 



* See Memoirs Geol. Surv. India, Palaeontologia Indica : "On some Tertiary 

 Crabs from Sind and Kutch " (1871), p. 3. 



DECADE V. VOL. II. NO. A'll. 20 



