If then we have before us in the 'germinal history' (ontogeny) a fairly
precise repetition of the 'racial history' (phylogeny), we may deduce
from this that the primitive forms of the Crustacean race were animals
which consisted of few segments, and that from these, in the course
of the earth's history, the very diverse modern groups of Crustaceans
have arisen, by the addition of new segments, and the adaptation of
the limbs upon them, which were at first biramose swimming-legs, to
different kinds of functions, one becoming an antenna, another a jaw
or a swimming-arm, a third, fourth, fifth, and so on, a jumping-leg, a
copulatory organ, an egg-bearer, a gill-bearer, or a tail-fin.
[Illustration: FIG. 109. Metamorphosis of one of the higher Crustacea,
a Shrimp (_Peneus potimirim_), after Fritz Müller. _A_, the nauplius
larva with the three pairs of appendages: _I_, the antennæ; _II_ and
_III_, the biramose swimming-feet. _Au_, the single eye. _B_, first
Zoæa stage, with six pairs of appendages (_I-VI_). _Skn_, area where
new segments are being formed.]
That the development has in general followed those lines is made clear
chiefly by the fact that the members of all these different orders of
Crustaceans still arise from nauplius larvæ, even in those cases in
which the perfect animal possesses a structure differing widely from
the usual Crustacean form. _All_ Crustaceans arise from the _nauplius
form_, even those of the higher orders, though they may not arise from
a nauplius _larva_. But this very circumstance, that in most of the
higher and many of the lower Crustaceans, the young animal, when it
emerges from the egg, already possesses more numerous segments and
limbs than a nauplius larva, again points to the connexion between
phylogeny and ontogeny, for in these cases the nauplius stage _is gone
through within the ovum_. The whole difference between this and the
forms we considered first lies in the fact that, in the latter, the
development is greatly shortened, condensed, as we might say, so that
the nauplius stage forms a part of the _embryonic_ development, and
that new segments and limbs develop in the embryo nauplius within the
egg, so that the young animal leaves the egg in a more advanced state,
nearer to that of the perfect animal, to which it can, therefore,
attain in a shorter time.
[Illustration: FIG. 109. _C_, second Zoæa stage. The thorax is now
divided into cephalothorax (_Cph_) and abdomen (_Abd_); seven pairs of
appendages are developed, and five more (_VIII-XII_) are beginning to
appear. _Au_, paired eyes.]
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