A HISTORY OF WORCESTERSHIRE 



particulars differs from Astacus, the genus of the lobster. Apparently 

 also the specific name jiuviatUis is not the proper one for the crayfish of 

 our English rivers, which ought rather perhaps to be called Potamobius 

 pallipes. But whatever its exact designation, it has a special interest for 

 inland counties as being the highest in rank of any Crustacea that they 

 can produce. It is not the only stalk-eyed crustacean to be found in 

 England in fresh water, but none of the others appear to be met with 

 far inland, and none of them approach the crayfish in size. It is only 

 now that its distribution in our island is becoming gradually better 

 known. For its eastward extension Mr. Walter Garstang, writing to 

 me from the Plymouth Laboratory under date December 13th, 1900, 

 quotes Mr. H. D. Geldart as vouching positively for its occurrence in 

 the headwaters of the Bure, and in some other streams of the county of 

 Norfolk, and now Mr. Edwards adds Worcestershire in the west to its 

 domain. Huxley, discussing the absence or apparent absence of these 

 crustaceans from localities in which they might have been expected, 

 says : ' It is still more remarkable that, according to the best information 

 I can obtain, they are absent in the Severn, though they are plentiful in 

 the Thames and Severn canal.' ^ 



The freshwater shrimp of which Mr. Edwards makes mention can- 

 not well be anything but Gammarus pulex. The only other amphipods 

 which the county is Hkely to possess are the subterranean species known 

 as ' well-shrimps.' For their occurrence, indeed, we may claim one 

 actual record, though whether it can strictly be called a specific record 

 is open to question. In their interesting historical account of the genus 

 Niphargus, Schiodte, Bate and Westwood include Worcestershire in the 

 list of EngUsh localities from which specimens had been obtained. The 

 specimens of which they are speaking are referred to the species Niph- 

 argus aquilex, Schiodte. The authors explain that they are found in 

 wells surrounded by very diverse geological conditions, and append the 

 following footnote : ' Shortly after the exhibition of the specimens 

 from Maidenhead, at the Linnsan [Linnean] Society, Mr. Edwin Lees 

 informed us of the discovery by himself of a specimen in water from the 

 well of his own residence in Cedar Terrace, Henwick, Worcester. This 

 well had been deepened in the preceding year into the red marl, which 

 is the formation under gravel. The animal had not been previously seen, 

 and only a single individual was observed.' * Since Bate and Westwood 

 record three species of Niphargus and one of Crangonyx from English 

 wells, since these small, pale, blind or purblind species are not so very 

 easy even for experts to distinguish, and since the authors do not claim 

 themselves to have seen the specimen from Cedar Terrace, it would be 

 rash to guarantee its belonging to Niphargus aquilex. But the prolonga- 

 tion of the third uropods, which are the hindmost tail appendages, is a 

 distinction between Niphargus and Crangonyx tolerably easy to observe, 

 so that we may with some confidence accept the generic determination 



* Huxley, The Cra^sh, International Scientific Series, vol. xxviii. p. 288, ed. 3 (1881). 

 ' British Sessile-eyed Crustacea, vol. i. p. 313. 



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