382 GAMMA1UD.E. 



G. marinus. Montagu states that it never quits the water 

 by choice, is incapable of leaping, and seems to make 

 very little use of its legs out of that element, for when 

 deprived of water it lies on its side and endeavours to 

 force itself along by the action of the tail. It is stated 

 that if put into fresh water it soon dies.* 



It has been taken by Rathke in the Crimea, and by 

 Liljeborg on the coast of Sweden ; but if we are to 

 judge of its normal habitat by the magnitude to which 

 it attains, the shores of the Arctic seas are where it 

 flourishes most. Some specimens in the British Museum, 

 procured by Mr. Drewsen at Iceland, are one inch and 

 a half long, while the largest that we have seen as Bri- 

 tish has not attained a greater length than three-fourths 

 of an inch. Dr. Walker, the naturalist to the last 

 Arctic expedition, under Sir F. L. McClintock, informs 

 us that the Arctic specimens frequently exceed two 

 inches and a half in length, and are phosphorescent. 

 This phosphorescent character has been affirmed of other 

 species, and is probably to be attributed to the food 

 eaten by the animal at the time, and is not a permanent 

 condition. 



Having already (ante, p. 15) employed the Linnaean 

 specific name, Locusta, instead of that of Saltator, for 

 our English species of Talitrus, and given in the pre- 

 ceding page a history of this name, the strict rules 

 of nomenclature forbid its second adoption for another 

 species with which Linnaeus may have happened to 

 have confounded it, and which, in the case of the 

 present species, is also inapplicable, the animal neither 



* Mr. Robertson informs us that lie has found that five out of seven, after 

 being eighteen hours in fresh (rain) water, continued to live upon being 

 returned to salt water. 



