6566 



Crustacea. 



parts, which Mr. Bell mentions, appeared only after immersion 

 in alcohol. 



Though this animal lived so long with me, and was manifestly 

 in health, — for I have a strong suspicion that it died, at last, not of 

 disease, but of the sly pinch of a wicked Gonoplax angulata, that for 

 a much longer time has tenanted the same tank, — I have less 

 to record concerning its habits than I hoped to learn when I 

 first rejoiced in the possession of so great a prize. The mere 

 acquisition of a preserved specimen seems to me a very poor object 

 of ambition ; when I get hold of a rarity it is with the hope of adding 

 something to its Natural History. 



The tank in which my Squilla resided is large, long-established, 

 well-peopled, and furnished with abundant means of retirement. 

 Of these last it availed itself to such an extent that, for many days at 

 a time, I could not with the strictest search find it. Always inert 

 and sluggish, it was yet much more active by night than by day. It 

 never manifested the slightest disposition to burrow, but a favourite 

 position was stretched upon the gravel, between two pieces of rock 

 just sufficiently wide apart to allow it freedom. It had one most sin- 

 gular action, w T hich it so frequently repeated as to be quite charac- 

 teristic. When annoyed by being touched with a stick, it would sud- 

 denly bend its tail forward under the body, and throw a complete 

 somersault, relapsing immediately into stillness again. The action 

 was performed with the most beautiful litheness and ease, and 

 in the smallest possible space, reminding me strongly of the feat of a 

 professed tumbler. The perfect flexibility of the long depressed 

 body was thus well displayed. 



I fed it occasionally with small fragments of raw flesh, which 

 it seized and held with its foot-jaws, but without any special manifes- 

 tation of eagerness, and without bringing into operation (as I 

 had hoped) those sabre-like weapons with which it is armed. I 

 wished much to see the action of these, but was disappointed. 

 I observed that they were always carried in a different position from 

 that figured by Mr. Bell, in both S. Mantis and S. Desmarestii, though 

 I perceive that the limbs are capable of being put into the position 

 depicted. The terminal blade-like joint I always saw closed upon 

 the haft-like penult, and the united weapon was so carried that the 

 opening of the former would have been perpendicularly downwards, 

 so that the stroke or sabre-like cut which the blade makes would 

 seem to be an upward cut, contrary to what 1 had imagined. Yet, as 

 1 never saw the animal take a living prey, it may be that, when 



