1879. | Recent Literature. 575 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
Miers’ CRUSTACEA OF COREA AND JAPAN.'—In this paper are 
enumerated sixty-four species of Decapods, of which twenty-six 
are new. Five new genera, Pleistacantha, Pseudophilyra, Para- 
tymolus, Pornatocheles and Heterocuma are indicated. Portunus 
strigilis Stm., is shown to be P. corrugatus Leach, which was well 
known from the shores of Europe and the Miditerranean, P. sub- 
corrugatus A. M. Edw., from the Red sea, is regarded as but a 
variety of this species, and specimens are reported from Naples. 
Paracrangon echinatus, which previously was only known from 
Puget sound, is reported from Yedo island. Before beginning 
the descriptive portion of his article, Mr. Miers has a paragraph 
on the geographical distribution of the species, in which he 
notices the affinity between the Japanese Crustacea and those 
found in the Mediterranean, a similarity which was commented 
upon by Dana in his chapter on the Geographical Distribution of 
the Crustacea, in the volumes of the U. S. Exploring Expedition. - 
A similar resemblance is also pointed out between the west coast 
of North America and Japan. It would seem, however, to the 
writer, that the true Japanese fauna, as well as that of China, is 
the most closely allied to that of the Southern United States, and 
that the resemblances of Japan to Western North America is by 
nent and the Pacific isles, and also all which are found on both 
coasts, and we have left forty-six genera with which to show the 
affinities of the Japanese fauna. In the following table these 
genera are given with a rough approximation as to their geo- 
created, and it is not always easy to assign the species described 
by the older authors to their proper position. This course of 
genus making and genus splitting has been severely criticised, 
but one can easily see how in a study of the geographical distri- 
bution it aids in showing analogous forms on the various coasts. 
! On a Collection of Crustacea made in the Corean and nese Seas. By ED- 
WARD J. Miers. (Proceedings of the Zodlogical Society of London, 1879, pp. 
18-61, pls. 1-111.) 
