CRUSTACEANS 



Hastings. In the year 1874 I myself, together with a friend, made search 

 for sand-burrowing species in the sands which stretch for about fourteen 

 miles from Lancing by Worthing and Goring and on past Littlehampton. 

 Unless where here and there weeds and stones afforded a shelter, these 

 extensive sands at that particular time rewarded our efforts with no 

 amphipods except a species of the genus Bathyporeia, Lindstrom, and a 

 single specimen of the genus Urothoe, Dana, The latter, since then de- 

 stroyed by an accident, was at the time wrongly referred to Slabber's 

 genus Haustorius, then known as Siilcator, Bate. The former was de- 

 scribed as Bathyporeia pilosa, Lindstrom. But Professor G. O. Sars, 

 writing in 1 891 on a species which 'occurs along the whole coast of 

 Norway,' says : ' The redescription of the British form of Bathyporeia by 

 the Rev. Mr. Stebbing has enabled me to identify this species with 

 B. pelagica Sp. Bate.' From B. pi/osa, he says, it is ' easily known by 

 the bright red ocular pigment, and by the much more slender form of 

 the 2 posterior pairs of pereiopoda.' ' This elegant little creature, 

 which is less than a quarter of an inch long, ' could have been taken 

 in thousands ' in the Sussex district above mentioned. ' Its presence 

 beneath the sand is betrayed by a small furrow, sometimes short and 

 nearly straight, ending in a little pit, at others twisting and meander- 

 ing about and occasionally zigzagged. The mothers with young look 

 as if their bodies were tinted with a delicate blue ; but this is due 

 partly to a double stripe upon each ovum, the colouring of which is 

 seen through the pellucid sides of the parent, and partly perhaps 

 to the contents of the alimentary canal.' ^ Greatly elongated second 

 antenns distinguish the adult male from females and young ones of 

 either sex. To these rather scanty records Mr. Guermonprez contributes 

 some valuable additions. His list comprises Talitrus locusta (Pallas), the 

 sandhopper, Orchestia gammarellus (Pallas), the shore hopper, Gammarus 

 locusta (Linn.) and G. marinus. Leach, two species which closely resemble 

 the freshwater G. pulex, and along with these stands Amathilla sabini 

 (Leach), of which perhaps the generic and certainly the specific name 

 requires to be changed, with the result of transforming the designation 

 into Gammarellus homari (J. C. Fabricius). Mention is also made of 

 the wood-boring species Chelura terebrans, Philippi, as found on floating 

 timber, and of Hyperia galba (Montagu) found so commonly in medusas. 

 Of two or three other species procured the names have not been decisively 

 ascertained. 



At this point may conveniently be mentioned Nebalia bipes (O. 

 Fabricius), of which Mr. Guermonprez has met with a single specimen 

 on the coast of Sussex. It has the particular interest of hovering between 

 the two principal sections of the Crustacea, some authors thinking that 

 it has a right to be classed with the Malacostraca, to which all the 

 hitherto mentioned species belong, while others would place it in the 

 following group. So embarrassing is the situation that the very restricted 



1 Crustacea of Norway, pt. 6, i. 130. 



* Stebbing, Annak and Magazine Nat. Hist. ser. 4, xv. 78, pi. 3. 

 263 



