CRUSTACEANS 



According to Dr. J. Richard 1 the Gymnomera feed on living prey, 

 consisting generally of other entomostracans. Some of them are of 

 much greater size than that which is normal among the Entomostraca. 

 Their appearance is also strongly differentiated by the projecting limbs. 

 In Polyphemus the enormous eye is naturally a conspicuous feature. In 

 Leptodora the second antennae have a huge peduncle, with both the 

 branches four-jointed and the plumose setae very numerous. 



Of the Ostracoda, which have the whole body shut up in a bivalve 

 shell covering as if in a box, three species are recorded by Baird from 

 Rugby, under the names of Cypris vidua, Miiller, C. monacha, Miiller, 

 and C. compressa, Baird. 2 The first of these is now classified as Pionocypris 

 vidua (O. F. M.), the second, from ' old canal at Rugby,' has been placed 

 in the genus Notodromas, Lilljeborg, and the third becomes a synonym 

 of Cypria ophthalmica (Jurine), Norman and Brady declaring it to be ' one 

 of the commonest of British species, occurring everywhere in ditches, 

 ponds and lakes, both freshwater and brackish.' 3 The Ostracoda are so 

 well protected, each in its own little natural fortress, that enemies of 

 their own size can have little chance against them. They are exceed- 

 ingly shy of exposing needlessly any tangible part of their tender body 

 or limbs outside the covering valves. Many can swim with great 

 rapidity. Some prefer to pass their time clinging to weeds or crawling 

 about the mud. Some sink and swim by turns. They are very prolific. 

 Their species are numerous, and of these there are no doubt a 

 goodly number in Warwickshire, so that a fuller discussion of the group 

 may conveniently wait till more than three members of it have been 

 recorded. 



Our great national library possesses a copy, though a somewhat 

 imperfect one, of the Reports of the Warwickshire Natural History and 

 Archaeological Society from 1837 to 1880. In the course of these con- 

 siderable attention is paid to geology and ornithology, and a plaintive 

 appeal is repeatedly made on behalf of entomology. But that such a 

 subject as carcinology exists cannot be inferred from the two volumes of 

 these collected reports, unless exception be made in favour of the report 

 for 1845. Therein, on page 6, in a list of miscellaneous donations, 

 mention is made of ' a Crab, by Mr. Spicer.' Naturally this crab does 

 not claim to be indigenous to the county, any more than ' a Crustacean ' 

 from ' the Lithographic Slate of Solenhofen,' reported on page 6 of the 

 next report. How little then need the student be daunted by negative 

 evidence ! How erroneous would have been any inference drawn as to a 

 dearth of crustaceans from the dearth of information about them, which 

 remained almost unbroken down to the year 1879 ! Since that date 

 researches have shown that at least in one important group the county is 

 richly provided. There are other groups in which it may be expected 

 that a like diligence will have a like result. 



1 Ann. Sfi. Nat. ser. 7, xviii. 339. British Entomostraca, pp. 152-4. 



8 Trans. R. Dublin Soc. ser. 2, iv. 69 (1889). 



I8 3 



