INTRODUCTION. 



Bibliography. — In literature the age of the Amphipoda scarcely reaches back beyond 

 a century and a quarter. Linnaeus knew almost nothing about them. At least, in one of 

 his descriptions he is shrewdly suspected of having mistaken the head of the animal for 

 its tail. Of particular species, it is true, earlier writers, such as Friderich Martens the 

 ship's barber of Hamburg, had formed fairly accurate conceptions. In the middle of 

 the sixteenth century Rondelet figured a specimen, but perhaps, like Linnaeus two 

 centuries later, without clearly knowing at which end of the creature to look for its head. 

 Nearly two thousand years before Rondelet it is surmised that the keen glance of Aristotle 

 had noted the existence of this tribe of diminutive shrimps, but his observation, though 

 it throws a venerable prestige over their scientific record, did nothing to awaken any 

 fruitful interest in their character and distribution. The institution of the srenus 

 Gammarns by J. C. Fabricius in 1775 presently brought the Amphipoda together as a 

 group, although naturally it was due to earlier labours that any necessity for grouping was 

 perceived. During the next forty years these Crustaceans no longer suffered from the 

 neglect which had previously left them obscure. When Latreille, in 1816, gave them the 

 name Amphipoda, an important stage was marked in the growing knowledge and interest 

 about them. Since then they have received a verj- ample measure of attention, and at 

 the present day they are studied in many parts of the world with great skill and evident 

 enthusiasm. Of the literature of the subject numerous lists have been published, among 

 which that by the late Axel Boeck in 1872 is the most important. He arranges in alpha- 

 betical order the names of one hundred and fifty authors, giving the titles of their contribu- 

 tions to the number in all of two hundred and seventy -three. This catalogue extends to the 

 year 1871. A separate chronological review of the literature is carried down only to the 

 year 1855. This part of Boeck's work is especially valuable for the comments which his 

 large knowledge of the subject enabled him to supply. He intimates, however, that his 

 comments are chiefly concerned with northern species. For dealing properly with the 

 almost cosmopolitan Challenger collection it seemed indispensable to verify, and as far as 

 possible to complete, the review which Boeck had so admirably begun. Neither the diffi- 

 culty of the task nor the prodigious bulk of the material result was at first foreseen. From 

 folio to pamphlet a vast mass of literature had to be consulted. How much borrowing of 



(ZOOL. CHALL. EXP. — PART LXVII. — 1888.) XxX b 



