A PROTRACTED SEARCH 395 



examining twelve specimens of Mysis oculcda he found six 

 infested with young Dajiis mysidis. On the other hand, 

 at the Neapolitan Marine Station, Salvatore lo Bianco 

 had opened about 10,000 Brachyura before he came across 

 a couple of Risso's Ergyne cervicornis, and MM. Giard and 

 Bonnier themselves had to sacrifice tens of thousands to 

 provide the requisite materials for their ' Contributions a 

 I'etude des Bopyriens.' 



Should any sensitive persons regret this expenditure 

 of life on a scientific investigation, they must remember 

 that it is perfectly trivial compared with what is continu- 

 ally being exacted for the meaner purpose of tickling man's 

 palate, trivial also compared with the havoc so frequently 

 wrought by storms among creatures of this same class, and 

 further, that against every crustacean destroyed must be 

 set the lives of many others preserved which would else 

 have been its victims. 



According to the authors cited only Portunion Koss- 

 manni on Plaiyonichus latifes can be called common. They 

 opened an enormous number of Forcellana longicornis at 

 ever so many points of the French coast before meeting 

 with a specimen of Entoniscus Millleri at Concarneau. 

 Both there and at three other places they examined the 

 Pagurid Clihanarius 'misantliroijus without finding a para- 

 site, although at Mahon in Minorca Dr. Fraisse found upon 

 this crustacean a PeUogaster, a Gryj^toniscus, an Athelgue^ 

 and a Palceuyge. Thousands of Portimus depurator (Linn.) 

 and Porcellaim ijlatycheles had in like manner yielded them 

 no parasites. They feel ready to affirm that our common 

 edible shrimp, Gromgon vidgaris, is free from Bopyrids, 

 though they remind us that Crangon munihis, its American 

 congener, is infested hjJrgeia. The occurrence of Epica- 

 ridea may be called, in terms of our present knowledge, 

 very capricious. It not unfrequently happens that, where 

 they occur at all, they occur in some profusion, their hosts 

 suffering as it were from an epidemic attack. One host 

 may undoubtedly carry several species of parasite, but it is 

 an axiom with Giard and Bonnier that both amongf the 

 Epic&.ridea and the E-hizocej)hala no species of parasite has 

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