SUPPLEMENT 



THE CRUSTACEA. 



We shall insert here, after the text of Latreille on the Mala- 

 COSTRACA, our supplementary observations on the class in 

 general, and also on that division in particular. 



All the animals of this class, as their name indicates, are 

 covered with integuments of a crustaceous substance, more 

 calcareous than that which envelopes the myriapods, the 

 arachnida, and the insects. Most of them feed on bodies in 

 a state of putrefaction, and in all the sexes are distinct. 



The ancients were very well acquainted with the division 

 which we call malacostraca, which they placed between the 

 mollusca and the fish. Aristotle has devoted a particular 

 chapter to the species which were known to him. Athenseus 

 has given an enumeration of such as are edible, and Hippo- 

 crates has noticed some which, in his opinion, may be usefully 

 employed for medicinal purposes. 



Pliny has scarcely added any thing to the observations of 

 Aristotle, and those who have since spoken of the Crustacea, 

 such as Rondelet, Belon, Gesner, Aldrovandus, and Jonston, 

 who also place them between the mollusca and the fish, have 

 produced nothing which could throw any additional light on the 

 natural history, or on the structure of this class of animals. 



The ancient naturalists, however, and even the modem, to 

 the time of Linnaeus, perceived, as we have seen, the necessity" 

 of classing these animals separately. That great naturalist, 

 liowcver, united them to the insects, and having taken as the 

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