254
THE STALK-EYED CRUSTACEA.
happened upon a specimen and offered a reward to a fisherman of
a shilling each for others. To my astonishment (and dismay !) he
brought me in a few days over a hundred specimens, and informed
me that when he visited his Crab-pots at about two o'clock in
the morning, there was a certain sand-bank which swarmed with
this little crab, at that hour, but he had never seen it elsewhere
or at any other time.
The Spiny Lobster (Palinurus quadricornis), is the true
Cray-fish, and often attains to a great size. I once measured a
specimen which I saw taken in Sark. It was four feet two
inches in extreme length, and eleven inches in spread of tail.
This species carries an enormous mass of ova of very small size
in proportion to the parent. Whilst species of much less di-
mensions, such as Callianassa subterranea, produces quite large
ova, but very few in number. As, however, the latter species
is greatly protected by living underneath the sand, such disparity
is accounted for.
The Fresh-water Cray-fish or Craw-fish (Astacus fluviatilis),
is found in abundance in brooks deeply cut through the
clay meadows of a lime-stone district. Its real home in this
country is Cricklade, in Wiltshire, where I have caught
thousands of them. [The Cray-fish used to be common, and
probably is so still, in the Lea and Chelmer, and is found in
some of the streams of the New River Company in prodigious
abundance.—Ed.] I have kept this interesting species alive
for some time in a basket of stinging nettles. In an ordinary
aquarium it soon dies, unless the water be very shallow.
The Common Lobster is so well-known excepting perhaps
under its scientific name of Homarus vulgaris, that any details are
unnecessary. It is very widely distributed, and although con-
sidered a delicacy, is unhappily not too discriminate as to its own
feeding. Albino specimens sometimes occur, and I once had one
alive for some time, which was of a pale flesh-tinted pink.
Nephrops norvegicus is a typical Dogger-Bank form of very
marked characteristics. It is called a "Prawn" in Newcastle.
I have frequently taken them from the stomachs of Cod-fish.
The Boring Crustaceans, Thalassinadae, are a remarkable
family, seldom seen, and never obtained except by digging
in low-tide sand-banks. Callianassa subterranea. Gebia deltura, G.
stellata and Axius stirhynchus are the chief forms. Another boring