No. vil. CRUSTACEA. 249 



NOTES ON THE OCEANIC COPE POD A. 

 By the Rev. A. M. Norman, M.A. 



The Copepodous Crustacea, though for the most part of 

 very small size, and apparently insignificant, are nevertheless 

 indirectly of no small consequence to mankind, inasmuch as 

 they make up for their minuteness by their extraordinary 

 productiveness and numbers, and constitute, in combination 

 with the Mysidea and larval forms of higher Crustacea, a 

 principal element in the food of the whale. 



The oceanic species have not hitherto had that amount of 

 attention paid to them which they undoubtedly deserve, yet 

 Kroyer, Lubbock, Baird, and Buchholz have examined and 

 described many forms which inhabit the Arctic seas. 



Unfortunately the number of specimens brought home by 

 the Arctic Expedition is very small, and, with the exception 

 of a bottle of surface-gathering from Baffin's Bay, which 

 contains an interesting series of some well-known forms, the 

 species are represented only by one, or at the most two speci- 

 mens, and these already mounted. In this condition it is 

 almost impossible to determine accurately those minute 

 details of structure in the "mouth and other organs, which 

 are absolutely essential to the correct definition of generic 

 and specific characters. At the same time, the conditions 

 under which the Copepoda were found, the extreme high 

 latitude, and the extraordinary amount of cold which 

 prevailed at the surface while these animals still remained 

 living in the dead of winter beneath the mass of superincum- 

 bent ice, render them so interesting that I am unwilling to 

 leave them wholly unnoticed, though the description which I 

 shall be able to give must of necessity be extremely imperfect. 



That the Copepodous Crustacea are able to exist under 

 circumstances, with respect to cold, which are most extra- 



