96 MR BAIRD ON THB ENTOMOSTRACA OF BERWICKSHIRE. 



all admiration. " The multifarious and complicated structure of their 

 body," says M uller in his admirable work ; " the wonderful agility of their 

 members ; the very great fineness of their organs ; their singular method 

 of living and copulating ; their living in waters which our cattle and we 

 ourselves are daily drinking ; the evils which they may give rise to, and 

 to which fishes are seen to be liable ; the emoluments* which, although 

 we are in the greatest part ignorant of, they nevertheless produce in the 

 economy of nature ; that these things are very worthy of being known, 

 scarce any one will doubt. Not to mention their external similitude to 

 shells, and the natural transition which takes place in them from insects 

 to testaceous animals, who ever knew before the cypris was detected, 

 of an insect quadruped f ? Before the limulus and caligus were properly 

 observed, who ever knew of an insect acephalous, or with a head scarcely 

 visible ? Who ever imagined of a copulation of two males with one fe- 

 male at one time, such as takes place in the famous Pulex aquaticus ; or 

 of an animal whose head was all eye, as we see in the Polyphemus ? 

 These and more wonders are to be met with in the history of the Ento- 

 mostraca."J At commencing this catalogue, it was my intention to have 

 prefixed some details of each of the genera, as they had come under my 

 own observation, and as they have been made known to us by the con- 

 tinental naturalists ; but I found that, to do justice to the subject, the pa- 

 per would be swollen to too great a length, and that it would afford 

 abundant materials for several papers which might be communicated at 

 different intervals. I have confined myself, therefore, at present to the 

 catalogue of the Berwickshire species of the Entomostraca, adding ob- 

 servations on each of the species as they occur. We are indebted to 

 the labours of this Club for the knowledge of the fact, that Berwickshire 

 and the district to which our labours extend, abound in a very great va- 

 riety of species both of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, many of 

 which too are very rare, some scarcely to be found in other counties ; 

 and we also know that the geology of the district is one of very great 

 interest. Sea and land have both been ransacked, and made to give up 

 their hidden treasures, and though the minute and microscopic insects 

 which form the division Entomostraca have hitherto been neglected, I 

 have no doubt that our county and district will yield a plentiful harvest 

 to the gleaner in this department also. Dr Leach, in his article Crusta- 

 cea in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, has only enumerated sixteen species 

 of Entomostraca as found in Great Britain, a list which is increased by 

 Samouelle, in his British Insects, to twenty. This strikingly shews what 

 little attention has been paid to the subject by British naturalists, as I 



* " It is the common opinion that it is the Caligus which forces the salmon from the sea 

 up rivers towards the cataracts." 



f- The Cypris, according to M. Straus, has six feet, two being always concealed within 

 the shell ; according to Ramdohr they have four. 



I Muller't Entomostraca, p. 4. 



