7. Preliminary note on Isopoda of the family Bopyridae 
parasitic on Indian Decapoda Macrura. 
By B. Cuorra, M.Sc., Research Assistant, Zoological 
Survey of India. 
(Read at the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Indian Science Congress 
and communicated by the Director, Zoological Survey of India.) 
Nothing has so far been published about the Bopyrid 
Isopoda of the Indian Empire, and very little about those of 
neighbouring countries. A considerable amount of work has, 
however, been done on the European forms by several workers, 
in recent years, among others, by Giard and Bonnier, Sars, 
Bonnier and Tattersall, and the North American forms of both 
the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts have been more or less 
thoroughly investigated by Miss Richardson and some other 
scientists. Stebbing has described a number of species from 
Africa. So far as strictly Oriental forms are concerned, the 
islands forming the Malay Archipelago have received the most 
attention, though a number of species have been described 
from the seas around Japan. Giard and Bonnier based two 
of their new genera, Probopyrus and Palaegyge, on forms 
collected at Amboina, and Weber recorded more species of 
these genera from Sumatra and the neighbouring islands. Later 
Bonnier described his genus Orbione from Hongkong; and 
Bopyrella from the Amis Island, Oceania. Nobili in 1905 
added another species to the former genus from Singapore. 
Some of the forms described by Stebbing were captured 
in the Indian Ocean, near the coast of Africa, and a few so 
far east as the Maldive Islands. Horst has recently described 
another species of Palaegyge from Java. 
Working through the collection preserved in the Indian 
Museum | find that the family Bopyride is very richly 
represented in the fauna of this country. In all I have 
examined over thirty species belonging to thirteen different 
genera. As is to be expected in the case of specialized 
parasites like the Bopyrids, most of the forms in our fauna 
represent species hitherto undescribed. Of the thirteen genera 
two are new to science, while all the species except five or six 
have not been hitherto described. Two other forms parasitic 
on two species of Latreutes probably belong to a new genus 
to which an already described form from the coast of North 
America—Bopyroides lalreuticola Gissler—must also be referr- 
T have not, however, set up a new genus to accommodate 
these forms as both of my specimens are in an unsatisfactory 
