There is also a fellow-feeling amongst them, and they are ready to help each other in various other ways. Thus, when Edward was informed by Mr. Spence Bate that the Rev. Mr. Norman was working up the British Entomostracous Crustacea, including the Fish Parasites, Edward immediately began to scour the coast, and wade along the waves as the tide came in, plunging into the rock-pools, in order to procure the animals of which Mr. Norman was in search. He did this, regardless of his health, and also regardless of his pocket.
A long correspondence had already taken place between Edward and Mr. Norman; but, in the midst of it, Edward was again laid up by illness, which lasted for about six weeks. The correspondence dropped for a time; but it was afterwards renewed. Mr. Norman, in his letter of May 12th, 1862, observed, “I have been absent from home ever since I received your last note, or I should have answered it before. I am extremely sorry to hear of the cause, your serious illness, which prevented your answering my two last letters, and seemed to end a correspondence from which I had derived so much pleasure,—finding in yourself such a kindred, nature-loving spirit. I am rejoiced, however, that God has mercifully raised you up again after so much suffering, and that you are recovering the blessings of health and strength.
“Many thanks for the promise of your kind offices for me in procuring Fish Parasites. Our knowledge of them is at present but limited, and a large number of species new to our Fauna, may, I am satisfied, be found, if properly looked after. I trust, therefore, that you may extend your knowledge of the Crustacea of the Moray Firth to this branch of the subject.”
It would occupy too much space to detail the contents of the letters which Edward received from Mr. Norman and Mr. Spence Bate while their respective works were in process of publication. But there are several facts in them worthy of being noticed. There was one Crustacean about which some difficulty had arisen. It was the Mysis spinifera, which Edward had first found in the Moray Firth in the year 1858. He had sent it to one of his correspondents, in order that he might give it its name. But it remained unnoticed and unknown for a period of about four years, when it was re-discovered in Sweden by M. Goes, who at once published the fact. “Thus,” says Edward, “the first finder, as well as the country in which this Crustacean was first found, have both been ignored in the records of science.”
NEW SPECIES DISCOVERED.
Edward discovered many new species, some of which had never been met with before, and others which had not been met with in Britain. Some were recognised and named, but others were not. “The number of specimens I collected,” says Edward, “was immense. It must have been so from the various methods I adopted to procure them, and from the fact that I never lost a single opportunity of obtaining even but one object when it could be got. Labour, time, cold, wet, privation, were nothing, so that I could but secure the specimen that I sought for. . . . There are still several new species which I discovered and sent to gentlemen years ago. All I knew about them, from letters I received in return, is that they were new; but whether they have ever received names, or whether the discoveries have been made public, I do not know.”
THE VIBILIA BOREALIS.
Mr. Spence Bate did every justice to Edward in the discoveries which he made of new species, in connection with his branch of the Sessile-eyed Crustacea. In one case, Edward caught only the anterior moiety of a small Crustacean (Protomedeia hirsutimana), and yet Mr. Bate includes it in his list, and gives a drawing of it. Mr. Bate also did every justice to the accurate, description of the habits of the species which Edward forwarded to him. For instance, Edward discovered the Vibilia borealis, a new species, in the Moray Firth, on which Mr. Spence Bate observes—
“Hitherto the species of this genus have been taken only as pelagic, in tropical or sub-tropical latitudes. It is an interesting fact that this species should have been taken off the coast of Banff, from whence it was sent us by that very successful observer Mr. Edward, who, in writing, says: ‘I can say little as to its habits. I took eleven, and kept a few alive for a short time, but observed nothing in their manners beyond that which may be seen in the majority of species. I supplied them with plenty of sand, and also with a few marine plants, but they neither seemed to be burrowers nor climbers, as they never went into the one nor appeared to care for the other. They, however, swam a little. This they do somewhat after the manner of Callisoma crenata; in other words, they rise gradually from the bottom until they reach the top; then, putting on more power, they swim round and round the vessel. With close observation I observed that the superior antennæ were kept pretty well up, and very widely apart, whereas the inferior were always directed downwards. All the legs were kept doubled up. I never saw them stretched out. They would then sink once more to the sand at the bottom. There they would rest sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes longer, when they would again repeat their voluntary evolutions. They did not, however, always rise to the surface. The journey was sometimes performed to about mid-water. They are, when alive, a most beautiful coloured species, variegated not unlike Urothroë elegans, and rivalling that animal in brightness of tints. I took one, however, that was all over a most brilliant red. I have been told that this species has never been found outside the Medusa. However this may be, all mine were. And what appears to be most extraordinary is, that we have had no Medusæ here this season.” Edward found another species, new to Britain, Themisto Crassicornis, which exist in large quantities in July, August, and September. Mr. Bate says, “Mr. Edward informs us that he has seen specimens of these Crustaceans thrown on shore in extraordinarily large quantities. After a storm one night he saw them forming a band an inch and a half deep for thirty yards along the beach.”[49]
EDWARD’S CLOSE OBSERVATION.