532 Br. H. Woodward — Contrihutions to Fossil Crustacea. 



seen in the matrix of the fossil Hryon about to be described] " is 

 caused by its being strongly impregnated with bitumen, and is very 

 prominent in the ' Coral Limestone ' of Bobrek." 



Eryon Neocomiensis, sp. nov. PI. XIV. Fig, 1. 



Description. — The contour of the carapace is nearly circular, being 

 wider in front than behind : the anterior border is indented near 

 the attachment for the antennae and the eye-stalks ; the hepatic 

 border has a small and straight notch, and the cervical furrow is 

 also marked by a similar rounded indentation in the lateral margins ; 

 the posterior border of the carapace is roundly indented ; the first 

 abdominal segment exactly occupying the concavity. 



The carapace appears to have been extremely thin and delicate in 

 texture ; it is divided by a mesial ridge running from the posterior 

 to the anterior margin, and by a branchio-cardiac ridge on either side 

 the mesial one. 



The abdominal segments (with the exception of the first) are nearly 

 uniform in size, and each has an elongated ridge down the centre ; 

 the lateral portion of each segment being slightly granular, and the 

 border rounded. They decrease from the second to the sixth, from 



7 mm. to 5 mm. in breadth. The telson, which is hastate in 

 form, is 6 mm. long or one-fifth the entire length of the whole 

 specimen ; the telson and the swimmerets of the tail together are 

 12 mm. in breadth. The large claws are well preserved ; the hand 

 measuring 6 mm., and to the extremity of the pincers 11 mm. 

 The chelee are long, slender, and recurved, very much resembling 

 species of Eryon from Solenhofen. The wrist is only 2 mm. long, 

 the arm may be estimated at 11 mm. 



The eyes are, if present, indistinct ; but the large rounded scale 

 at the base of the outer antenna can be distinctly seen and the 

 antennge and antennules can also be made out in a good light with 

 a pocket lens. The three basal joints of the antennae are stout, the 

 first two are oblong in form, and the third joint has the inner angle 

 produced. The total length, to the end of the flagellum, is about 



8 mm. The antennules are slender and bifid, and measure 5 mm. 

 in total length. 



Mr. H. N. Moseley, F.E.S., Naturalist on board the " Challenger," 

 mentions that "in dredging off Matuku Island, in 320 fathoms, on a 

 coral bottom, some Fhorus, Turritellce, and a few other shells were 

 brought up, as icell as numerous specimens of the blind Crustacean 

 PolycJieJes, and other animals, showing the fauna to be a true deep- 

 water one, and with these a living specimen of the Pearly Nautilus." 

 The same Crustacean {Polycheles), he states, was dredged off the Island 

 of Sombrero in the Danish West Indies, in from 450 to 490 fathoms. 



There can be very little doubt that this curious Crustacean 

 {Polycheles), like the Pearly Nautilus with which it was dredged 

 up from these great depths, is the modern representative of this 

 ancient genus Eryon, and that its range in time was probably nearly 

 coequal with that of the Nautilus. 



Like its living congener [Polycheles) and its fossil predecessor in 



