144. DR. CHARLES CHILTON ON THE SUBTERRANEAN 
the careful observations of the latter, and his view that all 
the recorded species are forms of one cannot be for a moment 
accepted. 
Fortunately there is no great difficulty in identifying our 
British species. Besides Niphargus fontanus, which I have not 
seen, we have three species. The first, N. subterraneus, Leach, 
is known from many districts in the Southern Counties of Eng- 
land and as far north as Norwich; it has not been recorded 
from Scotland nor Ireland; Mr. Thomas Scott tells me that he 
has frequently sought for subterranean crustaceans from wells 
near Edinburgh without success, and I have not been able to 
hear of them in any part of Scotland, though I have made 
frequent inquiries ; neither could it be found in the Irish caves 
investigated by Carpenter and others, though it had been specially 
looked for years before by Wright and Halliday [36. p. 26]. In 
Europe the species is very widely distributed and has been 
recorded from many localities in France, Austria, Bohemia, 
Germany, Poland, &c. 
The second species, V. Kochianus, Spence Bate, has been 
recorded from several localities in the South of England, and is 
also found in Ireland at Dublin. In Europe it is so far known 
from Munich only, though it is doubtless to be found at other 
places; and it seems probable that V. puteanus, described by 
Hosius from Bonn, is the same species. _ 
The third speeies, Crangonyx subterraneus, Spence Bate, is 
known in England only from Ringwood and Marlborough and 
appears to be rare, for in each case only a single specimen was 
obtained. In Europe a few specimens have been recorded from 
Radotin near Prague by Vejdovsky, and many years previously 
it was taken at Munich by de Rougemont. 
From this it appears that, with the exception of WV. fontanus, 
which is as yet known only from Spence Bate’s description, 
all the British forms belong to species widely distributed in 
HKurope. 
Genus Nipuarcus, Schiddte. 
1851. Niphargus, Schiddte, Det danske Videnskabernes-Selskabs Skrifter, 
5e Raekke. Naturvidenskabelig og Mathematisk Afdeling, 
Ba. ii. p. 26. 
The genus Niphargus was established by Schiddte in 1851 for 
the reception of some subterranean Amphipoda and was accepted 
! 
