THE TEUHNICAIL NAME OF THE CRAYFISH. 13 
word, it may have come to us straight from the Angle 
and Saxon contingent of our mixed ancestry. 
As to the origin of the technical name; dorakds, astakos, 
was the name by which the Greeks knew the lobster ; and 
it has been handed down to us in the works of Aristotle, 
who does not seem to have taken any special notice of the 
crayfish. At the revival of learning, the early naturalists 
noted the close general similarity between the lobster and 
the crayfish ; but, as the latter lives in fresh water, while 
the former is a marine animal, they called the crayfish, 
in their Latin, Astacus fluviatilis, or the ‘ river-lobster,” 
by way of distinction; and this nomenclature was re- 
tained until, about forty-five years ago, an eminent 
French Naturalist, M. Milne-Edwards, pointed out that 
there are far more extensive differences between lobsters 
and crayfish than had been supposed; and that it would 
be advisable to mark the distinctness of the things by 
a corresponding difference in their names. Leaving 
Astacus for the crayfishes, he proposed to change the 
technical name of the lobster into Homarus, by latin- 
ising the old French name “ Omar,” or “‘ Homar” (now 
Homard), for that animal. 
At the present time, therefore, while the recognised 
technical name of the crayfish is Astacus fluviatilis, that of 
the lobster is Homarus vulgaris. And as this nomencla- 
ture is generally received, it is desirable that it should not 
be altered; though it is attended by the inconvenience, 
that Astacus, as we now employ the name, does not 
