198 Bibliographical Notices. 



the thing we pluck off with our fingers, not without inward murmur- 

 ings at the absurd complexity of Palaemonic structure, has such a 

 dignified name as ' Cephalo-thorax.' Still less that the well-flavoured 

 red thing when alive can deserve so much eloquence as Mr. Gosse has 

 expended upon him in the following passage : — 



" Large Prawns swim at freedom through this large pool ; and a 

 very pleasing sight it is to watch them as they glide gracefully and 

 equally along ; the tail-fans are widely dilated, rendering conspicuous 

 the contrasted colours with which they are painted ; the jaws are 

 expanded, the feet hanging loosely beneath. Now one rises to the 

 surface almost perpendicularly ; then glides down towards the bot- 

 tom, sweeping up again in a graceful curve. Now he examines the 

 weeds, then shoots under the dark angles of the rock. As he comes 

 up towards me I stretch out my hand over the water ; in an instant 

 he shoots backwards a foot or so ; then catching hold of a weed vdth 

 his feet and straddling its vertical edge, he remains motionless, gazing 

 up at me with his large prominent eyes as if in the utmost astonish- 

 ment. 



" This Prawn, that comes to our tables decked out and penetrated, 

 as it were, wdth a delicate pellucid rose colour, beautiful as he is then, 

 is far more beautiful when just netted from the bottom, or from the 

 overhanging weed-grown side of some dark pool. If you happen 

 never to have seen him in this state let me hitroduce him to you ; 

 form and dimensions of course you are acquainted vdth ; these do not 

 change, but I will just observe that it is a * sizeable ' fellow that is 

 now before me, whose portrait I am going to take. Stand still, you 

 beauty! and don't shoot round and round the jar in that retrograde 

 fashion, when I want to jot down your elegant lineaments ! there 

 now he is quiet ! quiet but watchful ! maintaining a sort of armed 

 neutrality, with extended eyes, antennae stretching perpendicularly 

 upwards, claws held out divergently with open pincers ready to seize, 

 as if these slender things could do me any harm, and feet and ex- 

 panded tail prepared in a twinkling to dart backward on the least 

 alarm." 



The book is full of such genial and graphic descriptions of marine 

 animals, interspersed with an abundance of carefully made and detailed 

 scientific observations ; particularly as regards the Polypes and Me- 

 dusae. Mr. Gosse gives some of the best descriptions of the peculiar 

 ' thread-cells ' of these animals we have met with, and his observa- 

 tions respecting the effect of light on the colour of Fuci and of Crus- 

 tacea, upon the development of Lepralia, and on the mode in which 

 the Pecten performs its leaps, are well worthy of attention. With 

 respect to the latter point we may remark, that whatever may be the 

 case with Pecten, we have unquestionably seen the allied genus Lima 

 flapping with its valves like a butterfly through the water. 



The only faults we have to notice in Mr. Gosse' s book arise from 

 that want of acquaintance with foreign literature which is unhappily 

 the rule in English works. Thus he does not seem to know that the 

 structure of the eyes of the Lamellibranchiata has been elaborately 

 described by Krohn and Will, and that a memoir has been devoted 



