On the AsfacilltB of Cordiner, 107 



projecting antennae and four anterior pairs of natatory legs free ; 

 while the three hind pair of prehensile ones are grasping the 

 stems of the tubularia indivisUf growing with other corallines 

 on a dead shell of the cyprina islandica. The attitudes of 

 the animal, exhibited in the figures, are remarkably expres- 

 sive, and appear to accord with its structure, especially the 

 arrangement of its legs. 



In the year 1805, the late Mr. James Sowerby, without 

 apparently being aware of the previous labours of Mr. Cor- 

 diner, again introduced the astacilla to the notice of the pub- 

 lic, as an addition to our Fauna, in his valuable '* British 

 Miscellany," No. III., plate xv. He there designated it 

 under the title Oniscus longicornis, with the following specific 

 character : — Segments of the body, 10 ; the fourth is the length 

 of six others. Antennae consisting of five joints. The eight 

 fore-legs hairy in the inside, the others smooth ; eyes black." 

 This species was transmitted by the late Mr. T. W. Simmons, 

 as having been ** entangled in the nets off Dysart, near Inch 

 Keith," in the Frith of Forth. The figures bear a sufficiently 

 close resemblance to those of Cordiner, though on a more 

 reduced scale ; and the only addition, of consequence, to the 

 history of the animal, which was at this time communicated, 

 was included in the following sentence : '' The eggs are red, 

 and adhere to the under side of the largest segment of the 

 body." 



This singular species of crustaceous animal, thus prominently 

 brought under the notice of British naturalists, appears to 

 have been altogether overlooked by that truly zealous and 

 successful systematical zoologist. Dr. Leach, in his different 

 treatises on crustaceology, which successively appeared in the 

 Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, the Linnaean Transactions, and the 

 Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica ; and it was 

 equally excluded from the collection of these articles pub- 

 lished by Mr. Samonelle, in his ** Entomologist's Useful Com- 

 pendium." Nor did it find a place in the ♦* Considerations 

 Generales sur la Classe des Crustaces," of M. Desmarest, 

 Paris, 1825. This omission is the more remarkable, as Dr. 

 Leach, under the article Hippolyte Sowerbai, refers to the 

 " British Miscellany," and Desmarest enrols the same work 

 in his <* Bibliographic Carcinologique." The latter author, 



