18 The British Oceanic Entomostraca. 



THE BRITISH OCEANIC ENTOMOSTRACA. 



BY GEORGE S. BEADY, M.E.C.S., 



Secretary to the Tyneside Naturalists' Field Club. 



(With a Coloured Plate.) 



Undee the term " Oceanic Entomostraca" we include all those 

 free-swimming species which are met with not far from the 

 surface of the sea, either in littoral situations or in the open 

 sea far away from land. We do not here take cognizance of 

 those which haunt the sea bed and find their sustenance by 

 crawling over weeds and rocks, their powers of swimming 

 being either altogether wanting, or so slight as to serve only 

 for very short excursions from the ground. 



The species to which our present paper refers are met with 

 during the warm months of summer in wonderful abundance 

 near the surface; so numerous, indeed, are they that they 

 constitute the chief food of very many fishes, and they may 

 often be plainly seen to impart a turbid or specky appearance 

 to the water. They are best taken by means of the towing- 

 net, an appliance which, for the benefit of those who are not 

 acquainted with it, we may briefly describe. It consists of 

 a long funnel-shaped net of bunting, crinoline, or some other 

 strong but loose-meshed material, attached to a ring of cane, 

 eighteen inches or more in diameter. It is well to weight the 

 ring moderately at one side, so as to sink it a little beneath 

 the surface of the water. But besides the outer net above 

 ■described, there should be an inner net made of the same 

 material, of the same diameter, but only of half the length, 

 and tapering more rapidly. This is to be left open, with 

 an aperture of about a couple of inches at its narrow end, 

 and is intended to act as a valve to prevent the regurgita- 

 tion of the contents of the outer net when being dragged 

 through the water. The apparatus will be more conve- 

 nient if the outer net, instead of being sewed up close at the 

 small end, be left with an open neck, to which a cupping- 

 glass or a stroug glass bottle may be attached by a piece of 

 string or elastic. The bottle thus attached will receive the 

 contents of the net, which may be removed much more readily 

 and with less injury than by turning a net inside out, which 

 must be done if not provided with this arrangement. Three 

 or four strings are to be attached at equal distances round 

 the ring of the net, tied together at their free ends, and 

 finally secured to a long and strong cord, by which the net is 



