CRUSTACEANS 



Though there are mud fishes and climbing fishes and fishes that 

 migrate from pond to pond, it still remains true that a fish out of water 

 is in an anomalous position. With crustaceans the case is different. 

 Like fishes they are essentially an aquatic tribe, but they have been more 

 venturesome, more adaptive than their scaly companions. In various 

 ways they have contrived to suit themselves to terrestrial life, so that to 

 many species the immediate neighbourhood of water is unnecessary. 

 None the less in all our counties, inland as well as maritime, the aquatic 

 species and specimens are sure greatly to outnumber those that live in 

 the open air. In fact, just as we speak of many men, many minds, we 

 can with equal assurance speak of many waters, many crustaceans. Such 

 local names as the manor of Water Eaton, the market town of Fenny 

 Stratford, the hamlet of Waterside, sufficiently testify that Buckingham- 

 shire can provide the carcinologist with happy hunting grounds. Until 

 of late it is the hunters that seem to have been wanting. At any rate, if 

 there have been any, the records of their researches have either not 

 been published, or have been given to the world sporadically and in a 

 manner no longer easy to trace. The species now to be reported depend 

 not on the evidence of books or scientific transactions, but on inquiries 

 specially made for the purpose of the present volume, and on investi- 

 gations of which the results have been in the friendliest manner placed 

 at my disposal. 



That the river crayfish, Potamobius pallipes (Lereboullet), is plenti- 

 ful in this county no one could reasonably doubt, having regard to the 

 known facts of its distribution in neighbouring districts. A definite 

 record of its occurrence however has come to hand in a rather amusingly 

 circuitous way. The well-known statistician, Dr. W. Ogle, upon hear- 

 ing of my wish for particular information, advised me to apply to his 

 niece, Miss Johnson of Cutlers' Farm, Lane End, near High Wycombe. 

 This lady very obligingly at once pursued the inquiry in a highly 

 practical manner by laying it before her colleagues on a board of 

 guardians. One of the members from Hovenden, a tiny village at 

 the foot of the hills close to Princes Risborough immediately replied 

 that there were plenty of crayfish in the stream there. Since there is 

 good reason to believe that we have only one species of this genus in 

 England, its existence in the locality may well be accepted on the dis- 

 interested testimony even of an anonymous poor law guardian, without 

 any critical questioning of his zoological capacity. Of the stalk-eyed 



no 



