CRUSTACEA. 



89 



prawns," is a delicacy quite unknown along the north-eastern 

 shores of Ireland. 



It would be inconsistent with our limits to enter into detail 

 respecting the smaller Crustacea, which present themselves to 

 our notice under circumstances so varied, and at times so 

 unexpected, that they often excite feelings of surprise, and 

 cannot be regarded without interest. 



Certain species we find in the deep water of our bays; 

 others, like the little sand-hoppers (Fig. 62), on the moist 

 margin of the strand; but there is, perhaps, no place that 

 better repays our investigation than the beautiful little rock- 

 pools, fringed with sea-weeds and corallines, and inhabited by 

 multitudes of small Crus- 

 tacea, which climb upon their 

 branches, or enjoy themselves 

 in the clear expanse of their 

 waters. It is interesting to 

 know the extraordinary fer- 

 tility of these apparently in- 

 significant creatures, whether 

 living in such situations or 



111 the ponds and ditches Of Fig. 62. TALITRUS (MAGNIFIED), 



our fields. " Jurine has, with great fidelity, watched the 

 hatching and increase of one freshwater species (Cyclops 

 quadricornis), and has given a calculation which shows its 

 amazing fecundity. The female carries, on each side, a little 

 packet of eggs, and he has seen her, when isolated, lay ten 

 times successively; but, in order to be within bounds, he sup- 

 poses her to lay eight times within three months, and each 

 time only forty eggs. At the end of one year, this female 

 would have been the pro- 

 genitor of 4,442,189,120' 

 young 1"* This genus, from 

 being furnished with one 

 large compound eye, bears the 

 classic name of Cyclops (Fig. 

 63); but its cannibalism is 



Worse than that Of the fabled in S' GS.-CYCLOPS (MAGNIFIED). 



* From some excellent papers, entitled " The Natural History of the 

 British Entomostraca, by William Baird, Surgeon," published in the 

 Magazine of Zoology and Botany, 1837, vol. i. page 314. It should, per- 

 naj5, be mentioned, that the female, when once fecundated, is so for life. 



