Page:VCH Lancaster 1.djvu/218

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A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE for the purpose, the Lancashire coast will probably yield many more species of Amphipoda than can as yet with certainty be assigned to it. Mr. A. O. Walker records "• Ampelisca brevicornis (Costa) = A. lavigata (Lilljeborg),' as taken 'off Southport, lo to 20 f., June '91. Eyes crimson with a scarlet Une behind them, and five black stellate spots behind that. Lower part of head having a scarlet cloud extending to the first epimere. Remainder of body transparent white with scattered black stellate spots. Length i3mm.'^ Of Ampelisca spinipes (Boeck), he says, ' Throughout the L.M.B.C. [Liverpool Marine Biology Committee] district in 20 to 50 fath. Length 17 mm. This is the commonest species in the district, the preceding one being the next commonest. I have httle doubt that the species figured as A. gaimardii (Kr.) in the British Sess.-eyed Crust, is this species, and not, as Sars supposes, A. typica (Bate). I have examined Bate's specimen, in the British Museum, and find both it and the figure to confirm this view. The relative proportions of the upper and lower antenna, which are correctly drawn, are alone sufficient to show that it cannot be A. typica.' ' There are, however, some difficulties in the way of accepting this view, because it is Bate himself who identified the supposed A. gaimardii with his own A. typica, and, though he was mistaken in that identification, it is tolerably clear that the description and figures of his species which he gave in a succession of works refer all to the same specimen, though not necessarily or even probably to the very specimen preserved in the British Museum. If it could be proved that A. spinipes (Boeck) is the same species as the original A. typica (Bate), the latter name by its earlier date would supersede the name given by Boeck.' From the stomachs of fishes Mr. Walker identified the following amphipods, Bathyporeia pilosa, in plaice and whiting at Morecambe ; but it is doubtful whether this was Lindstrom's original species of the genus, or one of its near allies, such as B. pelagica (Bate) ; Pontocrates arenarius (Bate) in Agonus, the armed bullhead or pogge, at Morecambe Bay ; Atylus sivammerdamii, which should be called Nototropis swammerdamei (Milne-Edwards), in dab and whiting at Morecambe, in cod at Garston ; Gammarus locusta (Linn.), in cod at Garston ; G. marinus (Leach), in cod at Morecambe and Piel Island ; Microprotopus maculatus, Norman, in plaice and whiting at Morecambe, and Corophium grossipes (Linn.), more properly called C. volutator (Pallas), in cod at Piel Island, and in whiting at Morecambe.* The same excellent authority records Lafystius sturionis (Kroyer), 'one specimen from underneath the pectoral fin of a cod from Liverpool Bay {Lancashire Fisheries Laboratories, November, 1893), length 3 mm.,'^ and says of Amathilla homari (Fabricius), 'the young of this species is one of the commonest Amphipoda on our coasts in tidal pools during spring and early summer';* and of Gammarus pulex (de Geer), that 'it is found in brooks and springs up to 700 feet above the sea. Length 16 mm," Walker further records ' Podoceropsis excavata (Bate) = Ncenia rimapalmata,' 8 nun. in length, as taken off Southport, and ' JJnciola planipes, Norman = 1 Trans. Liverp. Biol. Soc. ix. 299 (1895). s Ibid. p. 298. » See Bate in Ann. Nat. Hist. (Ser. 2), xix. 139 (1857) ; in White's Popular Hist. Brit. Crust, p. 171, pi. 10, fig. 4 (1857) ; in Brit. Sess. Crust, i. 127, fig. in text (1862) ; Cat. Jmpiipodous Crust. 91, pi. 1$, fig. I (1862) ; Sars, Crustacea o/Norway, i. 165, pi. 57 (1891). ♦ Trans. Liverp. Biol. Soc. vii. 113, 114 (1893). 6 Op. cit. ix. 304. 6 Ibid. p. 307. 7 Ibid. 166