i8o 



NATURE 



[December 7,. 191 1 



CONCEITS! \ i . i. it ( MM ii.lA >.' 



THIS is a gocxi instance of a sound type of book, 

 one in which the specialist seeks to interest 

 accessible outsiders in the particular class of animals 

 to which he has devoted himself. It >iometimes 



Fk;. I.— a Spider-crab, Maia sguinado, dressed in fragments of weeds, 

 (reduced), trorn "IheLifcof Crustacea." 



happens, indeed, that the specialist, forgetful that 

 I lure was a time when even he knew nothing of his 

 "()loi;y," writes what no one outside the cult can 

 pretend to enjoy or even to understand ; or, having got 

 narrowed down to a particular side of his subject, 

 writes without perspective or any picturesqueness. 

 But although Dr. Caiman is one of the leading lights 

 on crustaceans, and has by his researches made "car- 

 cinology " (we are instinctively sure that he hates the 

 word) his lasting debtor, he condescends to write so 

 that any fellow can understand, and he takes a broad 

 view of his delightful subject. We say "delightful 

 subject," not to depreciate the success which Dr. 

 Caiman has achieved in writing so interestingly about 

 crustaceans, but because it must be admitted that 

 there is considerable inequality in the literary value 

 of the various classes of animals. Every zoologist 

 for his own group, but there is no denying that 

 crustaceans have more "points" about them than 

 brachiopods, and more "habits" than crinoids. 



Dr. Caiman knows so much about crustaceans that 

 111 inihues even familiar themes with new inii ri >i. 

 Thus the second introductory chapter, which givo 

 an account of the lobster, as so many teachers of 

 zoology do year after year, is enlivened by fresh 

 touches. We read, for instance, of the prawn that 

 was induced to put iron filings into its ears, with 

 the result that its locomotion was seriously disturbed 

 whenever a strong electro-magnet was brought into 

 irs vicinity. We are told, apropos of colour, that 

 living lobsters are occasionally found of a brilliant 

 red colour — ready boiled as it were. An account of 

 the lobster's habits of food-testing, quoted from Dr. 

 H. C. Williamson, strikes us as a fine piece of natural 

 history. It seems, by the way. an unnecessary con- 

 descension to the laity to go on speaking of the 

 gizzard as a stomach — a term which, as the author 

 knows so well, is doubly misleading. 



Helped by the excellent illustrations, the reader may, 



1 "The Life of Crustacea." By Dr. W. T. Calm.in. Pp. xvi4-23o. 

 (I.ondon : Methuen and Co. Ltd., igit.) Pr'ce 6i. 



with a little care, get from the third chapter a ^i| 

 of the somewhat intricate classihcation of the faii\ 

 shrimps, water-fleas, carp-lice, barnacles, opossun 

 shrimps, wood-lice, sand-hoppers, prawns, squilla 

 lobsters, crabs, &-c., that are all included under il 

 title Crustacea. In the next chapter, which deals wit 

 life-histories, the author is careful to jKiini oi. 

 that while the occurrence of a nauuhus lar\ 

 in the life-history of, let us say, a branchiop<vi 

 ;i copepod, an ostracod. a barnacle, and 

 pena?id prawn is strongly suggestive of th' 

 evolution-idea, there is no reason to enteriaii, 

 the idea that there ever was an anc^ir .1 

 type like a nauplius, or that any ancestor- 

 of the shore-crab resembled, even remote! \ 

 the zoea stage with which the life-historv < 

 the individual now begins. 



A great part of the book is devoted 

 consideration of crustaceans in relation i 

 their habitats, a mode of treatment which la\ 

 emphasis on adaptations. We are taken fir- 

 to the sea-shore, where the " shifts for 

 living " are so numerous and varied. \\ ■ 

 read of symmetrical hermit-crabs in watei 

 logged bamboo-stems; of crabs that m. 

 themselves with seaweeds, and when i 

 in an aquarium among sponges pickeu ■■ 

 the weeds and put on sponge; of Prof. Gai 

 stang's observations on the breathing o; 

 Corystes when buried in the sand, of the 

 liritish ocypods that make a buzzing or hissing 

 sound with their stridulating organ, per- 

 haps, as Dr. Alcock suggested, to warn 

 intruders that the burrow is already occupied; 

 of the extraordinary protective resemblance of Huenia ; 

 of the bewildering variety of colour and colour pa' 

 tern in Hippolyte; and so on through a wealth « 

 fascinating illustrations. We are taken next to th' 



Fig. a.— a Deep-fca Hermit-crab, Parapagurus pilosi- 

 tnanus, sheltered by a colony of Epizoantbus. From 

 deep water off the west of Ireland (slightly reduced). 

 From " The Life of Crustacea." 



deep sea, and the adaptations of long, stilt-like lej 

 of highly developed tactile organs, and the like 

 discussed. The discussion of luminescence is cot 

 niendably cautious. Of a recentiv described case 

 Certain deep-sea prawns whidi have photophor 



NO. 2197, VOL. 88] 



