THE TECHNICAL 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 ; acrraKos, 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 Jluviatilis, 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 Jluviatilis, 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 



