T HE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



[THIRD SERIES.] 

 No. 3. MARCH 1858. 



XVI. — On the Nidification of Crustacea. By C. Spence Bate, 

 F.L.S._, Corr. Memb. of the Dublin University Zoological and 

 Botanical Association*. 



[With a Plate.] 



That animals build nests, some for temporary and others for 

 permanent occupation, is well known; but that any which 

 dwell beneath the sea should do so, was not formerly supposed 

 possible ; and I believe that it is among the more recent of dis- 

 covered facts that some species of Crustacea habitually dwell in 

 abodes of their own construction. 



The American naturalist, Sayf, was the first who discovered 

 one of the Amphipoda in a small tube which he believed it to 

 occupy as a tenant, in the same way as the Pagurus Bernhardus 

 takes possession of the shell of the Whelk, &c. The tube, which 

 was cylindrical, membranaceous, diaphanous, and open at each 

 end. Say thought to have been constructed by an Annelid which 

 had either vacated or been driven from its home; the tube 

 was then taken possession of by the Amphipod. 



For this animal Say established the genus Cerapus, and named 

 the species tuhularis. He describes the animal as being very 

 active, running with great facility amongst the branches of 

 Fucus, Sertularia, &c., although encumbered by its tube, and, 

 what he thought to be very extraordinary, made use of its four 

 antennae only as feet, the proper feet being all included within 

 the tube, with the exception of the two anterior pairs (gnatho- 



* Communicated by the author, having been read at the Plymouth 

 Institution and Devon and Cornwall Natural History Society, on Feb. 1st, 

 1858. 



t Trans. Philad. Soc. vol. i. 

 Arm. ^ Mag, N. Hist, Ser. 3. fW. i. 11 



