A HISTORY OF DURHAM 



avidity every sort of crustacean that they can catch and swallow. Never- 

 theless, the land and freshwater crustaceans of Yorkshire and Northumber- 

 land are so little likely to differ from those of the intervening district 

 that they would have been no proper objects for cupidity. On the other 

 hand, in regard to marine species, the wresting of Norhamshire and 

 Islandshire from its northern neighbour is calculated to give Durham 

 much assistance in producing a competitive catalogue. 



In the present chapter the records referring to Lindisfarne and the 

 Fame Islands will be claimed for Durham. The disentangling of those 

 relating to the other dislocated areas will be neglected as in a great 

 measure impracticable, and if accomplished of doubtful value. The 

 distinctive glory of a county, with respect to its natural history, depends 

 indeed far less on the number of species it may be asserted to possess 

 than on the men who, within its borders, have increased the sum of 

 natural knowledge by their industrious accuracy and have left to those 

 who follow in their footsteps means of testing the fidelity of their 

 observations and records. From this point of view it will be found that 

 Durham has been singularly fortunate in having had long resident within 

 it carcinologists of such eminence as Dr. Norman, F.R.S., and Professor 

 G, S. Brady, F.R.S. The names of some others who have in their 

 measure rendered useful service will be mentioned in due course. 



The extent of our subject will be best understood from a brief 

 sketch of the classification here adopted. 



Crustaceans can be divided into three principal groups, Malacostraca, Entomostraca, and 

 Thyrostraca. The first of these combines in really close relationship a set of animals which, 

 to judge only by their outward appearance, habits, and names, might be deemed most 

 disunitedly multifarious. They comprise true crabs and false crabs, hermits and lobsters, 

 prawns and shrimps, wood-lice and sand-hoppers. There are also praying shrimps and 

 skeleton shrimps, as different as possible each from other and both from the common shrimps, 

 and ' little lobsters ' almost microscopic, and huge fish-lice, and other swarms for which 

 ' Dan Chaucer's well of English undcfiled ' found not nor is likely to find any vulgar names. 



Beginning with the true crabs, stalk-eyed, ten-legged, with short inflexed tails, the 

 Brachyura Decapoda, it is well to observe what is in their case the standard of truth. Their 

 thinly flattened tail or ' pleon,' which is more or less distinctly composed of seven segments, 

 is bound to have the last but one of these segments destitute of appendages. The true 

 crabs are divided into four tribes, Cyclometopa, Catometopa, Oxyrrhyncha, and Oxystomata, 

 very unequally represented in the records here dealt with. To the first of them, the arch- 

 fronted tribe, belongs Canctr pagurus, Linn., the great eatable crab, in aspect so familiar to 

 everyone, but for all that having a character which at the first glance distinguishes it not only 

 from all other English crabs, but from the great majority of crabs all over the world. This 

 much valued article of food is taken in more or less abundance all round our co.ists, and is 

 specially recorded from the Fame Islands by Mr. George Tate, who also mentions the 

 occurrence there of Portunus puber (Linn.) and P. depurator} Dr. George Johnston likewise 

 includes it, along with Carcinus manas, in his Catalogus Animalium et Plantarum 

 quae in Insula Lind'ufarneme visa sunt mense Maio a.d. 1854.'* Two other species 

 of Portunus were added to the Durham Cyclometopa by Dr. Norman in his Reports of 

 Deep-Sea Dredging on the North-East Coast of England, namely P. holsatus, Fabricius, 

 and P. pusillus. Leach.' While all the species mentioned agree in having an arched front to 

 the carapace, the shell of Cancer pagurus differs from the rest, not only in being much 



^ Hilt, of tke Berziickihlre NaturaPiiti' Clui, 1 8 50-1856, iii. 238 (1857). 



» Op. cit., vol. for 1876, p. 48. 



' Nat. Hist. Trans, of Nortiumb. and Dur., i. 12 (1867). 



