16 A HISTORY OF RECENT CRUSTACEA 
shrimp will sometimes attract attention by making an 
abrupt spring, after which it sinks softly into the moist 
sand, from which its imitative colouring makes it barely 
distinguishable. The stretches of sand on the shore, 
which to unobservant or inexperienced eyes might seem 
quite barren and deserted, are often teeming with crusta- 
cean life. The upper and driest zone will be riddled with 
the burrows of the sand-hopper. Lower down several other 
species of amphipods lie at a very small depth beneath the 
surface. Little biting carnivorous isopods are there, and 
occasionally others that are vegetarians. In some localities 
Cumacea can be found, but never very far from the waves, 
nor, when they are present, must it be expected that these 
animals will make a striking feature in the landscape. 
They are remarkably unobtrusive. Where rocks and 
rock-pocls and various kinds of seaweed abound, and 
especially on sheltered coasts, a very large number of 
species of amphipods and isopods may be obtained, these 
being in most instances distinct from those found in the 
sand. Here is to be seen Orchestia, the shore-hopper, a 
near ally of the sand-hopper, Talitrus. Here are two of 
the marine species of Gammarus, and examples of their 
cousins Melita and Mera, all of which, when on land, slip 
or wriggle along on their sides, and have in consequence 
been irreverently spoken of as ‘scuds.’ Many other forms, 
including some of the Caprellidee or skeleton-shrimps, can 
be obtained by examining tufts of the finely branched sea- 
weeds. At the lowest ebb of the spring tides, a day or 
two after new moon or full moon, species may be obtained 
which are rarely or never procurable higher up on the shore. 
Several of the isopods, however, may be taken, indepen- 
dently of the lowness of the tide, roaming among the 
coarser weeds, and mimicking in various ways the colours 
around them. The rocks which look least interesting, 
having no vegetation except the short black crumbling 
foliage of the Lichina pygmea, supply the curious Cam- 
pecopea hirsuta, an isopod easily to be confounded with the 
leaves of the tiny plant which shelters it. Found among 
cirripedes at low tide, however, it displays much brighter 
