CRUSTACEANS The naturalists of the county have not been hitherto attracted to lavish any exaggerated amount of industry on this branch of its fauna. Such an inference at least may be drawn from some of their published annals. In three volumes containing the Transactions of the Newbury District Field Club from 1870 to 1886 no allusion to Crustacea was trace- able, although, as will later appear, the class is not unrepresented in that district. The Reports and Transactions of the Reading Literary and Scienti- fic Society are scarcely more fruitful in regard to this department of know- ledge. They do, however, allow it recognition. In the Report and Proceedings for 1893, pp. 14, 15, an abstract is given of a lecture by Miss K. Green on ' Wonders of Pond Life,' and therein mention is made of * Cyclops, Cypris, Daphnia (Crustacea)' These are very properly introduced as examples of arthropods to be found in ponds, but there is nothing to show whether actual specimens of any species had been observed within the county. In the Report and Proceedings for 1894, p. 23, the abstract of a lecture by Miss E. C. Pollard on ' Some Animal Parasites ' offers ' a comparison of a lobster with its parasitic relation, the extremely degenerate sacculina.' That these are not indigenous to the inland waters of England needs no saying, but to prevent confusion the remark may be volunteered that species of the degenerate cirripede genus Sacculina have not been found infesting the ordinary lobster of our seas. The antithesis therefore might well have been more strongly pointed by contrasting the parasite with the common shore crab, an animal higher in the scale of organization than the lobster, though less able to protect itself from the attacks of this especial intruder. That Berkshire has very many species of aquatic crustaceans and at least a few that are terrestrial may be safely inferred from the circum- stance that it offers these groups the same conditions of existence as they enjoy in the neighbouring counties. Nor are there any intervening obstacles of an insuperable character. Reliance on this line of argument is encouraged by some definite notices. Few and scanty as these are, they prove that both Malacostraca and Entomostraca are here represented. The former division embraces the Decapoda or ten-footed species, such as crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimps, which often in popular ideas are supposed to monopolize the whole crustacean class. According to this view our inland counties would have to content themselves with a solitary species. This in fact is the one to which our attention should first be directed, and as to this one it is fair to admit that both early and late in the nineteenth century clear intimations exist of its occurrence in this 123
