A History of Crustacea

Abstract

“THE ambition of this volume,” writes the author in his preface, “is that it shall be one to which beginners in the subject will naturally have recourse, and one which experienced observers may willingly keep at hand for refreshment of the memory and ready reference.” A most laudable ambition, and one that the author, we doubt not, set out with an intention to fulfil. The want of a volume of this very sort upon this subject had been often felt by both the student and the expert. The advance in our knowledge of the group had made it impossible to annotate effectively that model “History of the Crustacea,” written by Milne Edwards, and Mr. Stebbing's painstaking, excellent memoir on the Amphipods of the Challenger Expedition, had pointed him out as a possible author of a useful manual. To write, however, a useful manual or history requires that one should take a wide and all-sided view of the subject, so as to secure a fair symmetry in its treatment; once the amount of detail to be given has been determined upon it should be rigidly adhered to, and, needless almost to add, no useless or unnecessary matter should be allowed to obtrude itself. Therefore, to a knowledge of the subject there must be added certain powers of judgment, to which it would be well to join certain gifts of style, in order that a satisfactory result might be obtained.

A History of Crustacea. Recent Malacostraca.

By the Rev. Thomas R. R. Stebbing With numerous illustrations. (The International Scientific Series, Vol. lxxiv.). (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, and Co., Ltd., 1893.)