Chapter I: Preface

This sketch of the Natural History of the Crustacea deals chiefly with their habits and modes of life, and attempts to provide, for readers unfamiliar with the technicalities of Zoology, an account of some of the more important scientific problems suggested by a study of the living animals in relation to their environment.

I am indebted to the Trustees of the British Museum for leave to reproduce certain figures prepared for the "Guide to the Crustacea, Arachnida, Onychophora, and Myriopoda exhibited in the Department of Zoology"; also to Sir Ray Lankester, K.C.B., F.R.S., and to Messrs. A. and C. Black for the use of a number of figures from my volume on Crustacea in the "Treatise on Zoology," edited by Sir Ray Lankester.

The source of these figures is indicated in the explanation attached to each. Of the remaining illustrations, some are reproduced from photographs of specimens in the collection of the British Museum; the others have been drawn from Nature, or copied from the original figures of various authors, by Miss Gertrude M. Woodward, to whom I am much indebted for the care and skill which she has given to their preparation.

W. T. C.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY 1

II. THE LOBSTER AS A TYPE OF CRUSTACEA 6

III. THE CLASSIFICATION OF CRUSTACEA 34

IV. THE METAMORPHOSES OF CRUSTACEA 66

V. CRUSTACEA OF THE SEASHORE 88

VI. CRUSTACEA OF THE DEEP SEA 117

VII. FLOATING CRUSTACEA OF THE OPEN SEA 138

VIII. CRUSTACEA OF FRESH WATERS 157

IX. CRUSTACEA OF THE LAND 188

X. CRUSTACEA AS PARASITES AND MESSMATES 207

XI. CRUSTACEA IN RELATION TO MAN 237

XII. CRUSTACEA OF THE PAST 256