•S7S 



Materials for a Carcinological Fauna of India. No. 1. The Brachyura 

 Oxyrhyncha.—By A. Alcock, M.B., C.M.Z.S., Superintendent of the 

 Indian Museum. 



Plates III-V. 

 [Received 11th April: — Read 1st May.] 



It was the intention of my immediate predecessor and late friend 

 James Wood- Mason to write a Descriptive Catalogue of the collection 

 of Crustacea in the Indian Museum. 



To this end he had collected a very comprehensive Crustacean 

 literature, and had set in motion a scheme for extracting in a handy 

 form the references contained therein. 



He had also roughly sorted the whole collection into its component 

 great-groups, and had made a large number of identifications. 



In short he had, before his sad and premature death, collected the 

 raw material for, and sketched the broad foundations of, a work that, 

 bad he lived on in unimpaired health, might have been a fit companion 

 and sequel to the classical volumes of that great naturalist Henri 

 Milne-Edwards. 



Only in the case of the Stomapoda had he gone further than this ; 

 and I am now preparing to edit, from the rough MS. notes at my 

 disposal, his account of a part of this Order as represented in the 

 collection of the Indian Museum. 



The present paper is the first of a series in which I hope to be 

 able to turn to some — though inadequate — account the mass of 

 material accumulated by my predecessor. 



My own work in this paper has been to complete, to arrange 

 systematically, to collate, and to verify the available references to the 

 literature of the Oxyrhyncha ; to determine about 70 per cent, of the 

 Indian species contained in the collection of the Indian Museum ; to 

 prepare the generic diagnoses and the descriptions of all the species 

 mentioned; and to work oat, to the best of my ability, keys— which I 

 hope may be of use to naturalists in India — to sub-families, genera, 

 and species. 



In the arrangement of the group as a whole, I have been guided 

 and assisted by the Revision of the Maioid Crustacea, by Mr. E. J. Miers 

 o 



