A HISTORY OF SUSSEX and at low-water mark. He himself has only dug out one specimen, having taken others ' stupefied by the cold after frosts at the March spring-tides, washed out at low-water mark.' He suggests that the accompanying form, which was described by Leach as U. deltaura, is the female of TJ. stellata. Bell also believes that the two forms belong to a single species. The hairy pinched-in front and spreading tail-fan of this crustacean, and its imperfectly chelate claws, are noticeable characters. Of another tribe, the Scyllaridea, one family, the Palinurids, is likewise represented here by a single species, since Mr. Guermonprez is able to record the occasional capture at Bognor of the common craw- fish, Palinurus vulgaris, Latreille. In the tribe Astacidea the family Nephropsids must not be over- looked, since it comprises a very prominent Sussex crustacean, Astacus gammarus (Linn.) . Upon this, which is better known as the common lobster, Messrs. Buckland and Walpole supply several interesting observations. Buckland in 1875 says, 'A great many small lobsters are sent up [to London] from Bognor, in Sussex, and a few large ones come from Bognor. These smaller kind of Bognor lobsters are in great demand during the season for breakfast and luncheon.' ' He was informed that the Bognor lobster fishery begins about March and ends at Christmas, or earlier in a very cold season. ' When first caught in the early part of the year, the lobster appears sandy and covered with sea-weed and slime ; as the sun gets stronger this comes off, and towards August and September they appear quite clean.' ^ The close season of two or three months is ex- plained as being the time needed by the fishermen for mending their lobster pots. In the evidence given before Buckland and Walpole, John Richards, a fisherman of Bognor, says, ' At the bottom of the sea, close in to shore, there are grass banks with holes like rat or rabbit holes, in which the lobsters live. These banks extend for 20 miles from Selsea to Shoreham in patches. The grass weed grows on mud banks. These mud banks form a breeding ground.' ^ The grass intended is clearly the sea-grass, Zoster a marina. The commissioners themselves say, ' Bognor, on the coast of Sussex, in some respects resembles Budleigh Salterton. There are some rocks called the Owers, 12 miles out to sea, where there is a considerable fishery, and there are no indications of failure on these rocks. But the inshore fishery is in a different condition. The bottom of the sea is a warm plateau of mud and sand covered with weed, which is apparently a nursery for small Crustacea. The smallest lobsters in England are caught on this plateau, and very small crabs are also taken in the immediate neighbourhood off Selsea. The fishermen consider that the lobsters come here from other places for the purpose of repro- duction, and they assert that there are no indications of any diminution in the number of these Crustacea. It is universally admitted, however, that the crab fishery at Selsea is declining in importance, and that there are not one third as many crabs as there used to be. It ought to be > Report an the Fisheries of Norfolk, p. 73. * Loc. cit. p. 74. 5 Report on the Crab and Lobster Fisheries of England and Wales, p. 65. 256
