CRUSTACEANS 



The naturalists of the county have not been hitherto attracted to 

 lavish any exaggerated amount of industry on this branch of its fauna. 

 Such an inference at least may be drawn from some of their published 

 annals. In three volumes containing the Transactions of the Newbury 

 District Field Club from 1870 to 1886 no allusion to Crustacea was trace- 

 able, although, as will later appear, the class is not unrepresented in that 

 district. The Reports and Transactions of the Reading Literary and Scienti- 

 fic Society are scarcely more fruitful in regard to this department of know- 

 ledge. They do, however, allow it recognition. In the Report and 

 Proceedings for 1893, pp. 14, 15, an abstract is given of a lecture by 

 Miss K. Green on ' Wonders of Pond Life,' and therein mention is made 

 of * Cyclops, Cypris, Daphnia (Crustacea)' These are very properly 

 introduced as examples of arthropods to be found in ponds, but there is 

 nothing to show whether actual specimens of any species had been 

 observed within the county. In the Report and Proceedings for 1894, 

 p. 23, the abstract of a lecture by Miss E. C. Pollard on ' Some Animal 

 Parasites ' offers ' a comparison of a lobster with its parasitic relation, 

 the extremely degenerate sacculina.' That these are not indigenous to 

 the inland waters of England needs no saying, but to prevent confusion 

 the remark may be volunteered that species of the degenerate cirripede 

 genus Sacculina have not been found infesting the ordinary lobster of our 

 seas. The antithesis therefore might well have been more strongly 

 pointed by contrasting the parasite with the common shore crab, an 

 animal higher in the scale of organization than the lobster, though less 

 able to protect itself from the attacks of this especial intruder. 



That Berkshire has very many species of aquatic crustaceans and at 

 least a few that are terrestrial may be safely inferred from the circum- 

 stance that it offers these groups the same conditions of existence as they 

 enjoy in the neighbouring counties. Nor are there any intervening 

 obstacles of an insuperable character. Reliance on this line of argument 

 is encouraged by some definite notices. Few and scanty as these are, 

 they prove that both Malacostraca and Entomostraca are here represented. 

 The former division embraces the Decapoda or ten-footed species, such 

 as crabs, lobsters, prawns and shrimps, which often in popular ideas are 

 supposed to monopolize the whole crustacean class. According to this 

 view our inland counties would have to content themselves with a 

 solitary species. This in fact is the one to which our attention should first 

 be directed, and as to this one it is fair to admit that both early and late 

 in the nineteenth century clear intimations exist of its occurrence in this 



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