THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 







No. XLII.— DECEMBER, 1867. 



OI^IC3-I^^.A.X4 -^i^ticxjIes. 



1. — On a New Genus of Shoke-crab, Goniocypoda Edwardsi. 

 FROM THE Lower Eocene of Hampshire.' 



By Henry 'Woodwakd, F.G.S., F.Z.S., etc. 



(PLATE XXI. Fig. 1.) 



NE of fclie characteristic features of the warmer and intertropical 

 regions of the globe, is the presence in abundance of those 

 highest forms of Crustacea, the Shore- and Land-crabs. 



Along our own coast, the common shore-crab, Carcinus moenas, 

 prevails ; on the coast of Spain the genus Grapsus is equally 

 abundant ; whilst in the Eastern seas the shores are tenanted by 

 Gelasimus, MacrophtJialmus, and Ocypoda. 



Among the Decapodous Crustacea which have rewarded the 

 labours of the palaeontologist, and furnished materials for Mono- 

 graphs by Professors Bell, Eeuss, A. Milne-Edwards, and others, no 

 fossil remains of the Quadrangular Crabs have hitherto been recorded 

 as occurring either in this country or on the Continent. 



So long ago, however, as 1822, M, Desmarest^ had figured and 

 described one species of Grapsus, five species of Gonoplax,^ one 

 species of Gelasimus, and one of Gecarcinus, which were probably 

 all from India and China (although the history of some was un- 

 known) ; for fossil crabs of these species are still sold in the Bazaars 

 of the East as a medicine.* It is highly interesting, therefore, to 

 record the occurrence, in the fossil state, of a true shore-crab, near 

 to Ocypoda, from the Eed Marl of the Plastic-clay, of High Cliff, 

 Hampshire. 



These Plastic or mottled clays and sands, which lie immediately 

 below the London Clay, contain many subdivisions representing re- 

 peated changes in the conditions imder which they were deposited, 



^ This new species was noticed by the author at the Dundee Meeting of the British 

 Association. 



2 Brongniart and Desmarest, Histoire Naturelle des Crustaces Fossiles. 1822. 



3 Prof. Dr. A. Reuss. Zur Kenntuiss fossiler Krabbeu in Denkschriften der K", 

 Akad. d. Wissensch. Mathem. natur w. cl. xvii. Bd. Vienna, 1859. Taf xx. and 

 xxiii., p. 82 has figured and described four species of Macrophthalmtis from the East 

 Indies and Molucca. 



* See Notes on Chinese 3Iateria Medica, by Daniel Hanbury, F.L.S. (Reprinted 

 from the Pharmaceutical Journal, February, 1862, and other numbers), p. 40. 

 *' Sliih-heae," Fossil Crabs of the Post-Tertiary period, obtained from the Island of 

 Hainan and on the opposite shores of Kwang-si. 



VOL. IV. NO. XLH. 34 



