Page:VCH Norfolk 1.djvu/224

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A HISTORY OF NORFOLK (Montagu), Paramphithoe bicuspis (Kroyer).' For the first of these the name should now stand as Unciola crenatipalma (Bate) ; for the second, as Podoceropsis rimapalma (Bate). Gammarus pulex{h r.), in dredged material from the Norfolk broads, has been recorded by Brady and Robertson.^ Recently the occurrence of a well-shrimp in Norfolk has been reported by Dr. Sidney Harmer, F.R.S. ' In January, 1899,' he says, 'I received two living specimens of Niphargus from my father's house at Cringleford, near Norwich. The well, which is about twenty-five years old, is forty feet deep, including some three or four feet of water. It is sunk in the chalk, which at that spot comes within two or three feet of the surface and is overlaid by humus only.' ' He determines this interesting amphipod to be Niphargus aquilex (Schiodte). The distribution of well-shrimps obviously suggests the same problem as that which Mr. Skertchly discusses about the prawns in the silt, the question being. How in the world did they get there ? As already intimated the answer, to my thinking, is easy, that the channels which carry the water carry also the crustaceans. For another welcome addition to the amphipods of the county we are indebted to Mr. Henry Scherren, F.Z.S., who discovered Corophium crassicorne, Bruzelius, in a very unexpected situation. When sending me the specimens, ihe says, in a letter from Yarmouth, August 7th, 1896 : ' They were taken in the river Thurne, not far from the broad which the Law Courts recently declared was not tidal. The nests were on Cordylophora lacustris, which is extremely abundant. To-day I have found C. lacustris at Acle Bridge, on the Bure. This last is a new locality for C. lacustris, and I assure you I was surprised to meet with this crustacean [the Corophium] there. I have secured good specimens of the Hydrozoon [the Cordylophora] with nests [of the Corophium] on the branches for the British Museum.' Mr. Scherren was subse- quently at the pains to ascertain that the salinity of the water in which this usually marine amphipod abounded was only about one- thirtieth of that of the sea water off Yarmouth Jetty. To dwell still further on the feeble catalogue of Norfolk amphipods, I must once more recur to Mr. Palmer's Perlustration. At page 229 he records that ' On the 8th of July, 1784, a small whale {Balcena mysti- cetus) was taken near Yarmouth.' Also, he says, ' In 1857 a whale was stranded on Winterton Beach, which measured forty-five feet in length.' But our present concern with the stranding of the Greenland or Right Whale on the coast of Norfolk relates only to the parasitic amphipod, Cyamus ceti (auctorum), or Cyamus mysticeti (Liitken), the curious so-called whale-louse, an amphipod of the tribe Caprellidea, which is almost invariably the whale's companion. Passing now from the Malacostraca to the next great division of the Crustacea, we shall have the assistance of some very acute and diligent ' Nordseefahrt der Pommerania, pp. 278—282.

  • Annali and Magazine of Natural History, Ser. 4, vol. vi. p. 7, 1870.
  • Tram. Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' Society, vol. vi., pt. v. pp. 489, 490.

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