134 NATURAL HISTORY OF OUR SHORES 



Pandalus annulicornis is a beautiful species, and 

 largely fished for market. It is of a size intermediate 

 between the two first named, and can be told at a glance 

 by the red and white banded antennae. 



Pasiphea sivado is a curious form, allied to the prawns. 

 It is of about the length of Palcemon sermtus, but compressed 

 laterally, nearly to flatness. 



It does not occur in the Channel Islands, nor have I seen 

 one alive, but I have had specimens from Weymouth. 



Lysmata seticaudata is a beautiful crustacean, about 

 three inches long, with short, arched rostrum, and the 

 prawn's graceful outline. It is banded longitudinally and 

 transversely with pink, giving it a chequered appearance. 

 It is really a Mediterranean form, but I have taken it on 

 the east coat of Jersey. 



Still in the Palcemonidce we have a number of exquisite 

 little forms, very common on rocky shores. They are the 

 genus Hippolyte, better known as " ^Esop's Prawns." The 

 commonest species is Hippolyte varians. In shape it is like 

 the ordinary prawn, only more " humped " at that part 

 of the abdomen where it bends in under. 



It is about an inch in length. The colours vary with the 

 surroundings green, red, brown and it has the power 

 of changing from the one to the other within a remarkably 

 short time. Specimens of a brilliant green placed with red 

 sea-weeds in a vessel of water will assume the red colour 

 of their surroundings, even the brightest red of the Rhodo- 

 spermce, within an hour. 



Red specimens placed amid green weeds change rather 

 more rapidly, but quite as completely, to bright green. 



How the change is effected is not known. 



It is usually supposed that, in the very well-known ac- 

 commodation of colour to surrounding as, for instance, 

 the changes of the octopus to brown, grey, etc., as it travels 

 over different ground, or the more familiar (and much 



