The quantity of water which occupies the space left in the branchial chamber by the gills is but small, and as the respiratory surface offered by the gills is relatively very large, the air contained in this water must be rapidly exhausted, even when the crayfish is quiescent; while, when any muscular exertion takes place, the quantity of carbonic acid formed, and the demand for fresh oxygen, is at once greatly increased. For the efficient performance of the function of respiration, therefore, the water in the branchial chamber must be rapidly renewed, and there must be some arrangement by which the supply of fresh water may be proportioned to the demand. In many animals, the respiratory surface is {80} covered with rapidly vibrating filaments, or _cilia_, by means of which a current of water is kept continually flowing over the gills, but there are none of these in the crayfish. The same object is attained, however, in another way. The anterior boundary of the branchial chamber corresponds with the cervical groove, which, as has been seen, curves downwards and then forwards, until it terminates at the sides of the space occupied by the jaws. If the branchiostegite is cut away along the groove, it will be found that it is attached to the sides of the head, which project a little beyond the anterior part of the thorax, so that there is a depression behind the sides of the head—just as there is a depression, behind a man’s jaw, at the sides of the neck. Between this depression in front, the walls of the thorax internally, the branchiostegite externally, and the bases of the forceps and external foot-jaws below, a curved canal is included, by which the branchial cavity opens forwards as by a funnel. Attached to the base of the second maxilla there is a wide curved plate (fig, 4, _6_) which fits against the projection of the head, as a shirt collar might do, to carry out our previous comparison; and this scoop-shaped plate (termed the _scaphognathite_), which is concave forwards and convex backwards, can be readily moved backwards and forwards.