A REVIEW, 



Having been during the past summer engaged in researches among the 

 Irish Isopoda, I am induced to lay before your Association the results 

 to which I have been led by an examination of the above genera, — 

 the rather, as from authors this interesting family has received but little 

 attention, and in consequence but little is known with certainty con- 

 cerning the habits, species, and distribution of the group. This is the 

 more remarkable, as of the fourteen species now to be noticed, all, with 

 the exception of two, are of extremely common occurrence, and their 

 gtudy, owing to their size, comparatively easy. In proof of this state- 

 ment I may mention that all except two (one a marine species) have 

 occurred to me in a garden not sixty yards square, and nearly all in 

 abundance. 



It would appear to have been the fashion with carcinologists (pro- 

 bably on accoimt of the terrestrial habits of most of the genera), to nearly 

 ignore their existence, and hence the mistakes with which the authori- 

 ties abound. This renders a brief sketch of the bibliography of the group 

 necessary. 



Historical Bibliography. 



Although a host of writers have from the earliest days of science 

 noticed these animals, yet the true nature of their generic, specific, 

 and familiar relations have been so totally misunderstood, and the cha- 

 racters drawn on for diagnosis are of so little real value, that we may 

 pass over the labours of the majority of authors, and come at once to the 

 works published within the last twenty years, the rather as this part of 

 the subject has been so ably treated of by Professor A. LerebouUet in the 

 *' Transactions of the Strasbourg Society,*' just now to be referred to. 



Passing, therefore, over the writings of Linnseus, (Jeoffroy, Fabri- 

 cius, De Geer, Cuvier, Leach, Dumeril, Latreille, Risso, Savigny, and 

 a host of others, whoso characters, drawn from colour chiefly, render 



