A DIMINUTIVE GIANT 31 



economy remarkable far more by their incalculable num- 

 bers than by their individual measurements. In regard 

 to the Phyllocarida, Dr. Packard remarks that the palseo- 

 zoic species were gigantic in size, some being about a foot 

 or more in length, while our recent Nebalia is less than an 

 inch. The new species, Nehaliopsis typica, Sars, however, 

 may extend the magnitude of modern examples to an inch 

 and three-fifths. The Phyllopoda can exhibit Estheria 

 californica, Packard, in a shell 16 millimetres long, ten 

 broad, and four thick, and AjJtis Newhernji, Packard, with 

 the carapace, the abdomen behind the carapace, and the 

 slender caudal appendages, each an inch long. But the 

 amplitude more usual in the sub-class may be estimated 

 by the respect paid to such a species as Bythotrephes 

 crassicauda^ Ijilljeborg, 5 mm. long, one of the Cladocera. 

 This is a colossal species of a fifth of an inch ! Among 

 the Ostracoda, Grossoplwrus imperator, G. S. Brady, is 

 one third of an inch long, and with good reason Dr. Brady 

 cannot restrain his admiration of ' this noble species, cer- 

 tainly the largest of the known Cypridinid^e.' 



In the Thyrostraca or Cirripedia a total length of two 

 or three inches will deserve and earn the lordly epithets 

 of eximium, regiwn^ and gigas, but the Patagonian Balanus 

 p)sitt(Jbcus (Molina), which grows rapidly and is ' universally 

 esteemed as a delicious article of food,' attains six inches 

 in length by three and a half in diameter, and a specimen 

 has been found no less than nine inches in length, though 

 only two and a half in diameter. Of the pedunculate 

 species, Lepas anatifera, the cotnmon Goose Barnacle, can 

 grow a stalk more than a foot long. Darwin says : ' The 

 largest specimen which I have seen had a capitulum two 

 inches in length ; the longest, including the peduncle, was 

 sixteen inches.' 



