BRITISH STALK-EYED CRUSTACEA. 19 
streams cut through a clay deposit. The spot where I have 
seen and caught them is Cricklade, in Wiltshire, where there is 
a good deal of water in the shape of brooks and swiftly-running 
streams which cut their way through the Oxford-clay of the 
oolitic limestone formation. Most of these brooks have steep 
banks, and the bottoms instead of being weedy, are often 
stony, so that these creatures are thoroughly at home. Plenty 
of running water, shade, coolness, and cover, but I do not 
think there is always plenty of food, for they must propagate 
to an enormous extent, judging from the fact that I once 
caught seven hundred in one evening in a small length of 
brook, and I have often heard of big hauls being made night 
after night in the same spot, and they never seem to get “low,” 
so to speak. 
I will briefly describe a ‘‘ craw-fishing” expedition. Having 
procured a dozen or more “nets” (a piece of string netting of 
small mesh stretched across an iron hoop about a foot in 
diameter, suspended horizontally by string), and a large piece of 
raw bullock’s liver, we started off just before sundown, to a 
favourite brook. Having selected a convenient stretch of brook 
for the evening’s fishing, we baited each net by tying a small 
piece of liver as firmly as possible to the centre, and lowered the 
nets into the middle of the brook, running them out over a 
forked stick, for any splashing or disturbance is to be avoided, 
and marking the position of each string by a piece of white 
paper pegged into the bank. 
The nets having all been lowered into the brook about twelve 
or twenty feet apart, we proceeded to number one, for it was now 
almost dark, and hauled it up, using the forked stick for this 
purpose. Two or three crustaceans were on the net, which 
showed us they were “‘ running,” and after working the nets for 
an hour or two we find we have bagged perhaps three hundred 
brace. It is a curious fact that although crayfishes may be 
well on the “‘feed”’ one evening, it will be impossible to get a 
single one on another, when circumstances are apparently 
similar. I have often noticed this apparent anomaly in con- 
nection with sugaring for moths. But when A. fluviatilis is 
“running” freely, then it is indeed sport. I have myself 
hauled up a net which was literally piled up with a mass of 
about twenty crayfishes struggling to get at the bait. A friend 
