MARINE CRUSTACEA IN CONFINEMENT. 175 



I have tried hard to find out what Crustacea lived in those 

 days, but the investigation has not been an easy one for me. It 

 is one I am still persevering with, however, and I may by careful 

 and painstaking work meet with some success yet. I should have 

 a better chance of success if I resided on the spot, and could give 

 more time to investigating the fallen masses of red-and-white 

 chalk. 



But I shall be writing a palaeontological article if I do not 

 check my pen. To return to the Decapoda I was about to write 

 on in my former article. 



Pandalus annulicornis is a pretty creature to have in an 

 aquarium ; it looks as if made of tinted glass, with the joints a 

 deeper pink. But I have found it rather tender in my shallow 

 vases. It does not seem happy unless the water is deep, and I 

 have never succeeded in getting it to breed as I have the hardier 

 Prawns. It needs a vase all to itself, as it fights fiercely with 

 its fellows, and a tank full of them will dwindle in numbers as 

 did the " ten little niggers," until, when there are only two 

 survivors, they get fighting, and then there is one. This one 

 may live for months, untroubled apparently in conscience, but a 

 very cold night may prove fatal to it, as it often has to mine. 



Palcemon serrdtus I have only occasionally captured, and 

 always of small size. It, however, makes one of the best 

 aquarium pets I have had, and will live for two or three years — 

 growing, indeed, until it gets too large for my vases. I had one 

 which lived for a long time in company with an Actinia mesem- 

 bryanthemum I brought from Brighton in 1876, and which is still 

 living. The Anemone seems to have killed it in the end, but 

 while it lived it was useful to pick up rejected pieces of food such 

 as the Sea-anemone often seizes with her tentacles and then 

 drops. I speak of it in the feminine gender because it has been 

 the mother of several young ones. 



Palcemon squilla I have also found an interesting pet. It soon 

 becomes tame, and will take scraped meat off my finger. I have 

 kept it until it has grown to full maturity, and become a parent. 

 The larvae, when first hatched from the eggs carried about by 

 their mother, fall to the bottom of the aquarium ; then they 

 suddenly give a flap with their tails, and dart upwards through 

 the water, afterwards slowly sinking, and anon repeating the 



