A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



of an inch long, but subsequently regarded the species so named as a 

 synonym of viridis} 



Cyclops phaleratus, Koch, from Ormesby Broad. This is only one- 

 twenty-fifth of an inch long. It ' is one of the less common British 

 species, and likewise one of the most distinct and most easily recognized.' 

 It is also found at the Botanic Gardens.^ 



Diaptomus gracilis, Sars, from Ormesby Broad.' 



Eurytemora velox (Lilljeborg), 'in several of the broads of Norfolk 

 and Suffolk.' * The proper designation of this species is open to ques- 

 tion, there being other claimants for each word of its tripartite title.^ 



Among the Phyllopoda or leaf-footed Entomostraca, there is one in 

 which Norfolk may claim a peculiar interest. The charming ' fairy 

 shrimp,' Chirocephalus diaphanus, Prevost, was, according to Dr. Baird, 

 first figured and described in 1709 by Petiver, who mentions it as a 

 native of England. Other accounts followed, by Linnaeus and Schaeffer, 

 of an animal similar but either not certainly or certainly not the same, 

 and then the species above named was definitely assigned to a habitat in 

 this county by Edward King, F.R.S., whose account of ' a very remark- 

 able aquatic insect, found in a ditch of standing water, near Norwich, in 

 the spring of the year 1762,' was published in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions for 1767. The impression produced on the early observers by these 

 pleasingly pellucid and delicately tinted non-crustaceous crustaceans, with 

 their numerous upturned, ever-moving branchial feet, is perhaps not ob- 

 scurely indicated by the eulogium which King bestows on the man who 

 found them. ' They were discovered by a poor man now dead, whose 

 genius was very extraordinary, and much superior to what is usually found 

 in his rank. He was indefatigable in his searches after everything curious, 

 and, without ever having had any advantages of education, had acquired 

 a degree of knowledge by no means contemptible.' " Happily these 

 beautiful phyllopods, if rare or rarely noticed, are still found from time 

 to time in parts of England. It would have been pleasant to enrol among 

 the worthies of Norfolk the poor man of uncommon genius, who watch- 

 fully studied these ' insects,' as they used to be called ; but King, who so 

 highly extols him, has left his name unrecorded. 



That Norfolk, like all our other maritime counties, has several 

 species of cirripedes, is quite certain. But apparently the actual 



* Nat. Hist. Trans. Northumberland, vol. xi. pt. i. p. 82 (17). 

 ^ Ibid. p. 90 (25) ; Ray Soc. Man., vol. i. p. 117. 



^ Nat. Hist. Trans. Northumberland, vol. xi. pt. i. p. 98 (33). * Ibid. p. 1 06 (41). 



^ It will be noticed that here the name of the Swedish naturalist, Lilljeborg, is placed 

 in parenthesis, whereas in the preceding line the name of the Norwegian carcinologist, G. O. 

 Sars, is not so imprisoned. This does not imply any invidious distinction between the two 

 eminent Scandinavian writers. It is only the conventional way of intimating that the species 

 to which Sars gave its specific name gracilis still remains in the genus Diaptomus to which he 

 originally assigned it, but that the necessities of classification have taken velox out of the genus 

 in which Lilljeborg himself placed it, the transfer in this instance being from Temora to 

 Eurytemora. The second of these genera, carved out of the first, was not in existence when 

 Lilljeborg instituted the species in question. 



* ^zwA, British Entomostraca, Y>. Z9y^'^y ^°<^-y 1 850, from Phil. Trans., vol. Ivii. pt. i. 1768. 



198 



