230 THE COMrARATIVE MORPHOLOGY OF THE CRAYFISH, 



craj'fisli and the pond-snail, or the craj'fish and the 

 perch. 



The exact determination of the resemblances and 

 differences of animal forms by the comparison of the 

 structure and the development of one with those of 

 another, is the business of comparative morphology. 

 Morphological comparison, fully and thoroughly worked 

 out, furnishes us with the means of estimating the 

 position of any one animal in relation to all the 

 rest; while it shews us with what forms that animal 

 is nearly, and with what it is remotely, allied : ap- 

 plied to all animals, it furnishes us with a kind of 

 map, upon which animals are arranged in the order of 

 theii' respective affinities ; or a classification, in which 

 they are grouped in that order. For the piu-pose of 

 developing the results of comparative morphology in the 

 case of the craj^fish, it will be convenient to bring toge- 

 ther, in a summary form, those points of form and struc- 

 ture, many of which have ah'eady been referred to and 

 which characterise it as a separate kind of animal. 



Full-grown English crayfishes usually measure about 

 three inches and a half from the extremity of the rostrum 

 in front to that of the telson behind. The largest 

 specimen I have met with measured four inches.* The 



* The dimensions of crayfishes at successive ages given at p. 31, 



beginning at the words " By the end of the year," refer to the '■ ecre- 

 visse a. pieds rouges " of France ; not to the English crayfish, which is 



