A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



inverted, and hang like icicles on the Verge of a Penthouse.' l Here we 

 have at least three (if not four) species and as many genera of crustaceans 

 indicated. A presumption also that other members of the same class were 

 observable in the waters of the county arises from Dr. Leigh's various records 

 of star-fishes, of ' blebs ' or jelly-fishes, of salmon abounding in the rivers 

 Kibble, Lune, Wire or Wyre, and Mersey, as well as from his discussion of 

 the barnacle goose and his statement that ' sometimes we have Whales and 

 Sturgeons.' No one, perhaps, would have been more surprised than 

 Dr. Leigh himself to learn that the parasitic or semi-parasitic companions of 

 his multifarious ' fishes ' could be lawfully and properly classed along with 

 the shrimp and the prawn. His apparently strange coupling together of 

 the oyster and the lobster will be explained, and in a certain sense justified, 

 later on. The different parasitic organisms will also be noticed under the 

 appropriate heads of classification. But the curious will have to range 

 in rather a wide field of philosophy before they can find prawns which deposit 

 their eggs on the rocks in inverted pyramids or pendent like icicles. For 

 Lancashire prawns the process is undoubtedly mythical, whatever the marine 

 substance may have been which led Dr. Leigh to imagine it. 



From the above-mentioned more or less garrulous work at the opening 

 of the eighteenth century to the prim catalogue by Isaac Byerley at the 

 middle of the nineteenth, is a scientific stride of considerable importance. 

 Yet, so far as the Crustacea are concerned, Byerley's Fauna of Liverpool is 

 not a little disappointing to a student of Lancashire zoology, since most 

 of the localities specified are outside the boundaries of the county. 

 That the author's list of species is trustworthy depends not so much on 

 any intrinsic evidence, as on the fact that the animals named are common 

 and easily identified, and on the circumstance that most of them have 

 been subsequently again observed by expert investigators of the same region. 

 In contrast to several other maritime counties of England, Lancashire 

 allows the Malacostraca, which are of primary rank in the class, to take a 

 somewhat secondary place in its fauna. Especially, as already suggested, 

 the Brachyura or crabs, which are the leading members of the leading sub- 

 class, are here but poorly represented. The ' arch-fronted ' Cyclometopa 

 supply in the family Cancridas the well-known Cancer pagurus (Linn.), the 

 great eatable crab, of which Byerley says that it is ' rather a plentiful species 

 here, but seldom of large size ' ; 2 in the family Portunidas, Carcinus mcenas 

 (Linn.), the common shore crab, mentioned by Byerley as 'very common 

 upon the shores everywhere,' s and frequently referred to in the reports of the 

 Liverpool Marine Biology Committee; Portunus depurator (Linn.), the cleanser 

 swimming crab, according to Byerley ' common both in tide pools and in 

 deeper water,' and according to A. O. Walker ' abundant everywhere ; 

 generally on stony ground 3 to 7 fath. ' ; * Polybius hensloivii (Leach), men- 

 tioned incidentally by Professor Herdman as by universal consent one of the 

 worst enemies of the shrimp ; 5 and, lastly, in the family Corystidae, Corystes 

 cassivelaunus (Pennant), the masked crab, which A. O. Walker speaks of as 

 ' not uncommon on sandy ground at various depths and between tide marks 

 throughout the district.' 6 These five crabs are easily discriminated one from 



i Loc. cit. p. 134. Op. cit. p. 51 (1854). Ibid. 



4 Trans. Bio/. Sec. Liverpool, vi. 97 (1892). " Loc. cit. p. 25. 6 Loc. cit. p. 97. 



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