Chap. III. MORPHOLOGY OF CRUSTACEA. 13 



CHAPTEK III. 



MORPHOLOGY OF CRUSTACEA — NAUPLIUS-LARV^. 



If the absence of contradictions among the inferences 

 deduced from them for a narrow and consequently 

 easily surveyed department must prepossess us in 

 favour of Darwin's views, it must be welcomed as a 

 positive triumph of his theory if far-reaching conclu- 

 sions founded upon it should subsequently be confirmed 

 by facts, the existence of which science, in its previous 

 state, by no means allowed us to suspect. From many 

 results of this kind upon which I could report, I select 

 as examples, two, which were of particular importance 

 to me, and relate to discoveries the great significance of 

 which in the morphology and classification of the Crus- 

 tacea will not be denied even by the opponents of 

 Darwin. 



Considerations upon the developmental history of 

 the Crustacea had led me to the conclusion that, if the 

 higher and lower Crustacea were at ^all derivable from 

 common progenitors, the former also must once have 

 passed through Nauplius-like conditions. Soon after- 

 wards I discovered Naupliiform larvae of Shrimps (* Ar- 

 chiv für Naturg.' 1860, i. p. 8), and I must admit that 



