CRUSTACEANS Hastings. In the year 1874 I myself, together with a friend, made search for sand-burrowing species in the sands which stretch for about fourteen miles from Lancing by Worthing and Goring and on past Littlehampton. Unless where here and there weeds and stones afforded a shelter, these extensive sands at that particular time rewarded our efforts with no amphipods except a species of the genus Bathyporeia, Lindstrom, and a single specimen of the genus Urothoe, Dana, The latter, since then de- stroyed by an accident, was at the time wrongly referred to Slabber's genus Haustorius, then known as Siilcator, Bate. The former was de- scribed as Bathyporeia pilosa, Lindstrom. But Professor G. O. Sars, writing in 1 891 on a species which 'occurs along the whole coast of Norway,' says : ' The redescription of the British form of Bathyporeia by the Rev. Mr. Stebbing has enabled me to identify this species with B. pelagica Sp. Bate.' From B. pi/osa, he says, it is ' easily known by the bright red ocular pigment, and by the much more slender form of the 2 posterior pairs of pereiopoda.' ' This elegant little creature, which is less than a quarter of an inch long, ' could have been taken in thousands ' in the Sussex district above mentioned. ' Its presence beneath the sand is betrayed by a small furrow, sometimes short and nearly straight, ending in a little pit, at others twisting and meander- ing about and occasionally zigzagged. The mothers with young look as if their bodies were tinted with a delicate blue ; but this is due partly to a double stripe upon each ovum, the colouring of which is seen through the pellucid sides of the parent, and partly perhaps to the contents of the alimentary canal.' ^ Greatly elongated second antenns distinguish the adult male from females and young ones of either sex. To these rather scanty records Mr. Guermonprez contributes some valuable additions. His list comprises Talitrus locusta (Pallas), the sandhopper, Orchestia gammarellus (Pallas), the shore hopper, Gammarus locusta (Linn.) and G. marinus. Leach, two species which closely resemble the freshwater G. pulex, and along with these stands Amathilla sabini (Leach), of which perhaps the generic and certainly the specific name requires to be changed, with the result of transforming the designation into Gammarellus homari (J. C. Fabricius). Mention is also made of the wood-boring species Chelura terebrans, Philippi, as found on floating timber, and of Hyperia galba (Montagu) found so commonly in medusas. Of two or three other species procured the names have not been decisively ascertained. At this point may conveniently be mentioned Nebalia bipes (O. Fabricius), of which Mr. Guermonprez has met with a single specimen on the coast of Sussex. It has the particular interest of hovering between the two principal sections of the Crustacea, some authors thinking that it has a right to be classed with the Malacostraca, to which all the hitherto mentioned species belong, while others would place it in the following group. So embarrassing is the situation that the very restricted 1 Crustacea of Norway, pt. 6, i. 130.
- Stebbing, Annak and Magazine Nat. Hist. ser. 4, xv. 78, pi. 3.
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