Crustacea. 



153 



Crustacea. The fishery for home sale and export, of the edible 

 kinds is very considerable, considering the limited area of our 

 fisheries, and here I must point out— I will not say what ap- 

 pears to me, but boldly say what is, a stupid clause in our laws 

 relative to the lobster fishery. 



It is enacted by our legislators (whose forte is certainly not 

 zoology), that any fisherman taking and selling a lobster of less 

 than nine inches in length will be fined ten shillings — in order 

 to protect the species ; but at the same time, egg-laden females, 

 with their burden of thirty to thirty -two thousand (!) little ones 

 on the point of emergence, are allowed to be taken and sold 

 without a question being raised. This is straining at a gnat 

 and swallowing a camel with a vengeance. 



The interesting question of protection by mimicry I cannot 

 do more than glance at on this occasion ; but this beautiful 

 law of nature is here, in the Crustaceans very well illustrated ; 

 a look at that fi Parthenope horrida " in the museum case, 

 which lies beside a lump of the sea bottom whence it was 

 dredged, illustrates this well, for it wants some practice to say 

 at a glance which is crab and which is sea-bottom, A few hours 

 netting in our rock pools will illustrate the matter further. 

 The Eippolyte prawns, netted among the zostera, will be found 

 a bright grass green ; those among the Fucus and Laminaria, 

 brown. The little species that haunt the corallines will be seen 

 to have purple-brown lines at their sides, with tiansparent 

 spaces between, resembling exactly the little branchings of 

 coralline. 



The surface-swimming " Mysids " are clear as bits of glass, 

 and so all through, except where strong armature make conceal- 

 ment unnecessary. The distribution of the Crustacea in area 

 and in time form also subjects of great interest, but time 

 forbids even a glance at this. So I will just conclude with a 

 word of recommendation to any of the members of this society 

 who may be seeking a field to work upon, and say, " Take up 



this field of Crustaceans ; " for, especially in the lower forms, I 



D 



