Crab, shrimp, and lobster lore

From the very earliest periods of the world’s history the family of Crab appears to have been well known and much respected, and the Zodiac would be incomplete without its “Cancer.” The picture from which the accompanying illustration is taken was drawn by an artist of the thirteenth century, and appears as an embellishment in a Prayer-book which afterwards became the property of Queen Mary, and is now in the British Museum. It serves to show the idea entertained in this country of that particular sign at the period referred to. Those remarkably odd fellows the early Romans, even in their time, were not the sort of folks to overlook or heedlessly pass by the merits of so distinguished a gentleman as Mr. Cancer. He was well known and highly appreciated in the Seven-hilled City long before Art, except as brought to bear on the delineation of rude and uncouth patterns on the skins of the inhabitants, was known in this country. But when the restless Roman gentry, before referred to, cast their lot on a distant shore, and settled in the savage British Isles, they bore with them memories not to be effaced or treated lightly. Tesselated pavements in Cancer’s honour were elaborately wrought, and carefully laid down by them in the villas they here built for themselves. The accompanying illustration represents a portion of one of these pavements discovered at Cirencester in the year 1783.⁠[1]

A great deal of this esteem, it is to be feared, somewhat resembled the great affection professed by a chief of the Feejee Islands for a very good-looking little midshipman of one of Her Majesty’s ships cruising among those fertile but questionable retreats. “I love him very much,” said the dusky potentate, “because he is so plump, and would make such a delicious roast with palm-top stuffing.” Apicius loved Crab because he was good in many ways. Hear what he says of Crab sausages: “Boil some of these animals, reduce them to a pulp; mix with this some spikenard, garum, pepper, and eggs; give to this the ordinary shape of sausages, place them on a stove or gridiron; and you will by this means obtain a delicate and tempting dish.” He also informs us that a Crab may be served whole, boiled, and accompanied by a seasoning of pepper, cummin, and rue, which the cook skilfully mixes with garum, honey, oil, and vinegar. Later on in history we find our friend Cancer depicted in heraldic devices, and among the armorial bearings of many influential families. So we see that his lineage is an ancient one. The family to which he belongs is extremely numerous, and it is with the peculiarities of some of its members that we shall now have to deal.

Among all the curious and quaint forms of animal life to be found in the sea, few for grotesque oddity can equal the baby Crabs, or Zoëa, as they are sometimes called. These interesting infants are not the least like their papa or mamma, and no respectable or fully-matured male or female Crab would ever own them as his or her offspring. An elfish little creature is the juvenile Crab, with a head scarcely deserving the name, and a pair of goggle bulls’-eyes as of two policemen’s lanterns rolled into one; a tail vastly too long for him, and an anti-garotte spear, quite as long as his absurd little body, attached to the spot where his coat-collar should be. The annexed illustrations will serve to give some idea of these prepossessing juveniles. They are the portraits of two little cousins. In this case, age, although it alters appearances, affects disposition but little, and, as you turn over some stone, fragment of wreck, or tuft of weed, in search of curiosities, young Master Crab will, in all probability, be found at home, and, like an enraged dentist, ready to do fierce battle against all intruders with his upraised pincers. This is the ill-disposed young gentleman who sends Lotty or Totty, with heartrending screams and pinched pettitoes, in wild dismay from the charming shell-floored pool, in which they have been paddling. Master Crab’s internal economy is just as curious as his external skeleton. One pair of jaws one would be disposed to think sufficient for any living creature of reasonable requirements; but he possesses eight, and, instead of exposing his teeth to the examination of the critical in matters of dentition, he carries them safely stowed away in the interior of his stomach, where they would be excessively hard to get at in cases of crustacean tooth-ache. With such appliances as these, the food cannot well be otherwise than perfectly masticated. A Crab’s liver is an odd organ to contemplate, and constitutes a considerable portion of the soft interior of the shell-like box in which the heart and other viscera are lodged. That well-known yellow delicacy known as the cream or fat of the Crab is liver, and nothing else. The lungs or gills are formed by those fringe-like appendages popularly known as the dead men’s fingers. The shell-shifting process before referred to, is common to all crustaceans; and our friend the Crab, when he feels his corselet getting rather tight for him, manages, by some extraordinary process, not only to extricate himself from it, together with his shell gauntlets and the powerful nippers with which he is provided, but performs other feats, compared with which those of the Davenport Brothers sink into utter insignificance; and we opine that, had those eminent spiritualists been called on to do by the aid of all their shadowy accomplices one half of that which Cancer and his cousins the lobsters and crays do unassisted, no Tom Fool’s knot would have been needed to complete their discomfiture. Not only are the too-constricted shell and claw coverings cast aside, but also the outer cornea of the eyes; the stem sheath of the eyes; the lining of the stomach with the internal teeth; the internal bones of the thorax; the lining membrane of the ear, and that covering the lungs; thus very nearly turning themselves inside out, as well as getting rid of their old suits of clothes. But all these wonderful operations are not performed with the ease with which the chrysalis sets free the painted butterfly, or the village maid, by touch of fairy wand, throws off her homely garb, and steps forth the gauzy glittering columbine in the transformation scene of a pantomime; but are works of time and trouble, the body appearing to dilate within its prison until the coffer-like cover formed by the shell slowly and by degrees gives way, the membranes one by one are torn asunder, the muscular tissue filling up the large claws and pincers undergoes a softening process which admits of its being drawn through the constrictions between the joints, and the crustacean and his old garments part company at last.

Between the loss of the old shell and the secretion of a new one, nothing can be more unenviable than the position occupied by our poor forlorn friend, who, like some fashionable exquisite during a temporary misunderstanding with his tailor, seeks retirement and obscurity. The pert young crablings, inquisitive, troublesome little gobies, and irritating prawns, who a short time since treated him with due respect, now pinch his unprotected skin and nibble at his poor defenceless tail in a manner not to be endured; so he shuns society, goes into dock for repairs, and waits for fresh sheathing and his new pincers to grow. These under favourable circumstances soon form, and “Richard is himself again.” It is our opinion that these moultings or changes do not, as some authors have stated, take place at regular and stated intervals in the lives of the larger crustacea, as rapidity of growth in particular individuals would tend to accelerate the period for change, and it appears probable, from the number and size of the marine molluscæ constantly found adhering to the shells of fully-matured specimens (oysters of even six years’ growth having been so discovered), that the changes of shell become less frequent as age advances.

The most important member of the Crab family, in a commercial and gustatory point of view, found in this country, is the large edible Crab of the shops, Cancer pagurus, the subject of the annexed illustration; and its capture not only gives employment to an immense number of families along the sea-board of England and its home dependencies, but forms an admirable school for the training of the hardy mariners so much needed for both our navy and mercantile marine. The professional crabber is usually an expert boatman, and line, or rather hook-fisher, in addition to his crab-catching powers. There are several methods by which Crabs can be taken, but that usually resorted to for the capture of the kind now under consideration is by crab pots, or baskets, woven of unbarked willows.⁠[2] These are contrived much on the principles of the common wire mousetrap, a number of points being arranged in funnel form at the entrance, so as to admit of free ingress, but rendering exit quite a different affair, and one by no means easy of accomplishment. The eel-basket, the salmon-trip, and many other fish traps are made in much the same manner, with some modifications as to material and size. Pieces of fish and fish offal are usually used as bait for these contrivances. This is secured within the basket, which, with a heavy stone as a sinker, and a long line with a float attached to it, is lowered down from the boat amongst sunken rocks and in the deep gulfs between reefs, where ledge, crevice, and secret cranny are known to afford hiding-places to the sought-for prey; and here the traps are allowed to rest, sometimes for the night, at others a shorter period, just as convenience or the probability of a take may suggest, when, the float being found and the line hauled in, the pot with its contents are soon safely on board the boat. Where many persons engage in the same occupation, it is necessary, in order to avoid mistakes as to the identity of the traps, to have certain distinguishing marks by which they may be known. Each fisherman, therefore, has his own pattern for the float—one using a single piece of circular form, another, a single square, whilst a third either piles several pieces in conical form, or cuts a peculiarly-formed cross. A plan we strongly recommend to those who wish to amuse themselves by catching Crabs for their own use, is to use a large flat bung, made of stout cork, nail a piece of strong tough wood, such as elm, to the under surface, in order to prevent splitting, burn a hole with a hot iron large enough for the float line to pass through, tie a knot or work a Turk’s head on the end of the line, paint the upper surface of the cork white, and then burn your initials deeply into the cork with a branding iron. The crabbers as a body are rarely dishonest, but little mistakes are at times made when crab-pots are insufficiently marked by the owner, and Crabs at a premium; still there are very few so utterly indifferent to the voice of public reprobation as to “haul another man’s pots,” a crime in the eyes of a fishing community pretty much on a par with stealing a sheep or robbing a church. Should you embark in the crabbing line, take our earnest advice: provide yourself with a boat with plenty of beam; have every rope, net, and line you use tanned; and never let your boat’s creeper, or “killick,” go on rocky ground without making use of the precaution shown in the accompanying illustration, known as “Becueing,” or the loss of creeper and creeper line into the bargain will be very likely to follow.

It will be seen, on referring to the above cut, that the line after having been secured to the ring at the head of the creeper shank, as at A, is brought down and passed under one of the claws as at B. It is again brought up until it meets the ring, to which it is secured with a piece of common twine doubled, or a bit of single spun yarn, as at C. It will be at once seen that, on either of the claws becoming fixed in a rock or under a ledge (a matter of constant occurrence when fishing from a moored boat), by pulling heavily on the line the twine or yarn stopper gives way, and the creeper becomes immediately free by being capsized, and can then be readily hauled in.

To safely bring a large fish to basket after it is hooked requires skill, patience, and proper appliances. Hooks and their attachments to the traces should be well looked to before commencing operations. There are two modes of fastening on fish-hooks. One, as in the foregoing cut A, is with well-waxed silk or thread, binding the hook-wire and trace firmly and neatly together, and then finishing off by passing the end of the lashing back under three or four turns of itself, vide cut B, and then drawing it tightly home. The other plan is by half hitches, two or three of which are turned over the shaft of the hook below the flattened end usually made to sea-hooks; when drawn tight the turns of line may be pressed up compactly together with the thumb nail. The accompanying cut C will better explain the mode of putting on the hitches than would any written description. Both traces and lines should have loops made in the ends; these, when run together by what is called the loop slip, shown in the above illustration, make a very neat and secure fastening. Stones are conveniently fastened on as sinkers to lines mounted with many hooks; by the plan shown in the above cut, no knots are made, and when the stone is removed the loop falls out and leaves the line as before its attachment. Large powerful fish should never be lifted into the boat by the tackle. A wide, short-handled landing-net, and gaff, made from a large-sized fish-hook, lashed to a staff, form an essential part of the equipment.

The owners of yachts, and families residing near the sea, will find a few crab-pots, which can be made at a very trifling cost, a valuable acquisition, as not only crabs, but lobsters, cray-fish, and prawns are readily taken in them. Sea fishing-tackle will be found very useful, as after having baited and laid down the pots a number of fish may be very often caught. These will be found acceptable as an addition to the daily bill of fare, and such as are of inferior quality make excellent crab-bait. It is not our intention to enter at any length on a description of sea-fishing gear; still there are certain hints and expedients relating to it which may not prove unacceptable to the reader. Lines vary much in substance and length with the description of fish it is intended to capture, cod, conger eels, hake, &c., requiring them of considerable strength and power; but it will be found, as a rule, that the lines used by the regular fishermen of our coasts are much stouter than is necessary, and it may be depended on that the finer the tackle is, consistent with the requisite strength to hold the fish when hooked, the more successful will be the result of its use. It is very seldom indeed that a line is broken by a fish, unless from some flaw or imperfection, the trace on which the hook is tied being far more frequently the point of breakage. Strong silk-worm gut, either single or twisted, is much to be preferred to the hemp snoodings in common use for all traces but those used in the taking of the very largest descriptions of sea-fish. The round plait prepared salmon line, sold by all fishing-tackle makers, answers admirably for a general sea-line. The length may be proportioned to the depth of the water it is intended to fish, but about thirty yards is a convenient quantity to deal with. This should, for hand-line fishing, be kept wound on a frame reel. One of these is easily made as follows:—Two flat pieces of tough strong wood, such as oak or ash, about a foot long, an inch and a half wide, and a quarter of an inch thick, are to be prepared; at each end of these, at about two inches from the extremity, a round hole is to be either bored, or burnt with a hot iron. Two round wooden bars of about ten inches in length, and the size of an ordinary walking-stick, are now to be prepared, cutting each end to fit the holes in the flat bars, so that they may pass through them, and extend about two inches beyond. A shoulder must be cut in each joint, in order to prevent the bars from coming together; when put in place they are secured with small pins or brads; but, before fixing them, a round flat piece of cork is to be run on each round bar to stick the points of the hooks in; the cut on p. 15 shows the shape of the framework and the reel complete. Reels of this description are much to be preferred to the common kind, on account of the free ventilation they afford the lines when wound on them, and the freedom from entanglements insured by the cork hook-holders. The traces before referred to may be used of either single, double, or triple strands. All gut before being knotted together should be steeped for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour in warm, not hot, water; the curled portions and ends are to be cut off, and the required number of lengths selected as to stoutness. They can now be attached to each other by the use of the gut knot, as shown in the preceding cut. This, when drawn home and the ends trimmed off, forms a very secure fastening. To make a double or triple gut trace it will be necessary to twist the strands constituting it. This can be readily done by knotting the extreme ends together and then placing them between the back spring and blade of a common pocket-knife, as shown in the annexed cut. The other ends are now taken by two or three persons, according to the number of strands to be twisted, held between the finger and thumb, and turned until a spinning motion is communicated to the knife hanging in the middle, when the trace is very quickly finished,—six feet is a good length for general purposes. All hook-lengths and traces should be attached to the main line by brass swivels. A short, stiff rod, with stand-up rings, fitted with a large-sized Nottingham reel, on which fifty or sixty yards of prepared line has been wound, will be found useful for taking many kinds of fish, and an extra joint or two adapts it for fishing from rocks or pier heads. When using tackle of this description from a boat for the capture of small fish, as pouting, chads, whiting, &c. are commonly called, it will be found a good plan to employ a foot trace of twisted gut, medium-sized trout-hooks tied on strong single gut snoods; these may be looped on at eighteen inches apart. The bottom of the trace must be secured to one of the conical sinkers of sufficient weight to keep the line straight down against the run of the tide. Bait with rag-worm, and commence fishing at about three feet from the bottom, when, if the fish are not found feeding there, shallow depths may be tried, or the ground itself just touched with the lead, only taking care that a sufficient strain exists just to slightly curve the top of the rod; on feeling a bite, strike sharply, and when the fish is found to be hooked, draw the line in with the right hand, whilst the rod is upraised in the left, until the prize is at the surface, when, unless very diminutive indeed, the landing-net should be made use of,—more fish are lost in weighing out than in any other way. Large captives must be played until sufficiently passive to be safely brought alongside and netted or gaffed.

Rod-fishing for mackerel bass, grey mullet, “Atherene” or sand smelt, and several other descriptions, may, at times, be practised with considerable success. We have taken great numbers of the two former with both bait and artificial fly. Mackerel fishing with the float-line affords, at certain seasons, excellent sport. A large cork float, four-foot trace of single salmon gut, and one medium-sized Limerick trout-hook should be used; three or four duck-shot will be found, with the swivel, sufficient to keep the trace straight. Bait with either pilchard gut, a strip cut from the tail of a freshly-caught mackerel, or a long narrow ribbon of cuttle; cap the float to about fourteen feet from the hook and let the bait drift off with the tide. We have repeatedly taken numbers of mackerel in this way when hand-lines of the usual pattern were not visited by a single fish. For grey mullet, live shrimps or pieces of rag-worm will be found the best baits. Smelts are taken by mounting a number of very small hooks, No. 12 Kirby bend, on short pieces of very stiff gut looped on to the main traces, at about six inches apart; a light sinker should be made use of, and short junks of rag-worm used as bait. Smelts much frequent localities where fresh water flows into the sea. Lead sinkers, of any weight between seven or eight pounds and that of a buck-shot, can be cast between two common Bath scouring bricks. Half the form of the intended sinker is cut on each brick (after the surfaces have been rendered smooth by rubbing them together) with a common knife or chisel. The two halves, when exactly matched, are tied together with tape and a small inlet hole made, through which the molten lead is poured from an iron ladle, tobacco-pipe, or iron spoon; according to the quantity of metal required: one brick is sufficient to cast simple forms in, merely cutting out the shape and filling it up. All sorts of articles in lead can be made in this way, without any of the dangers which usually attend casting in clay or damp mould. The two kinds of fishing leads represented in the above cut can be used for a great number of purposes, and are mounted either single or double, as the strength of the under current or run of the tide may render necessary, by passing a few turns of fine packthread or spare snooding through the holes at B, and bringing the flat surfaces of the leads in contact. A great number of bass, codlings and other fish are, in many localities, to be taken by laying out lines baited with whelk, hermit-crab, &c., to meet the coming tide as it flows in over beaches or sand flats. A heavy lead is often used as a means by which the line and baits are not only kept at the bottom when they reach it, but is turned after the manner of a sling round the head of the fisherman, and then cast far out in the surf, to be withdrawn and again thrown as the take of fish or renewal of bait may render necessary. There are many very great inconveniences attendant on this mode of fishing, and it is far better to lay down a traveller when the tide is out. This is done as follows:—Just before the turn of the tide and the coming in of the young flood, select the spot at which you intend trying your fortunes, and then search out a large heavy stone as your traveller block, and thus prepare it, with strong twine or whipcord; take two or three turns round the stone and securely fasten off with a knot; then attach a common curtain ring or the link of an old chain. Lay your block on the edge of the water, pass one end of your fishing-line through the ring, and walk back with it some distance up the beach, allowing the other end to be given off the reel until the spot at which the first end was dropped is reached. The line will now be doubled; one half has hooks on short traces, as many as it is thought expedient to use, mounted on it. The other half is free from hooks, in order that it may run through the ring without entanglement. A small piece of stick is knotted on the line close to the first hook, so that it cannot be pulled through the ring, as shown in the illustration on p. 21.

The arrangement is now complete and ready for baiting. It will be seen that as one line is drawn in, the other travels out towards the block, so that as the fish are hooked they are brought to land, the hooks are fresh baited, and the contrivance hauled out again without the trouble of throwing the lead. As the tide comes the fisherman walks back until he reaches high-water mark.

On some of our coasts a great number of Crabs are taken with the crab-hook. This is a sharp strong hook of tough iron, fastened to the end of a stout wooden staff, or pole, and the best time to use it is when the sea recedes during spring tides, and makes what among fishermen, is called a “great out.” At such times a great number of deep rock pools and hollow ledges become accessible, which during ordinary tides are far beneath the waves, and now is the harvest of the adventurous crab-hunter, who, hook in hand, climbs and scrambles among the slippery stones and weed-covered crags, to where narrow cleft and dark recess give promise of Crab’s lurking-places, when with a cautious probing motion, the curved instrument is thrust onward along the hidden galleries beneath the rock, until the practised hand detects the hoped-for impediment, when with one sudden, dexterous, backward stroke of his weapon he withdraws the retiring Cancer from his snug retreat, and exposes him to the garish light of day. Give him but one instant for reflection, and up goes his back against the roof of his hole, when, except by literally pulling him in pieces, extraction is a sheer impossibility; and it is in consequence of this exceedingly unaccommodating habit of his, that would-be crab-catchers have been at times crab caught, and their incautious groping hands held fast as though in the vice of some sea Vulcan, until the flowing tide has put an end to both their struggles and sufferings. The tenacity of a crab’s grip is perfectly extraordinary and all but incredible. A hold once taken is seldom let go, and the battles which frequently take place among these pugnacious gentry give ample scope for the exercise of their tremendous nippers; and nature has most wisely provided them with the power of throwing off such limbs as may be either seized by the enemy or seriously injured; and should they chance to encounter an antagonist from whom it appears wise to beat a retreat, our friend firmly seizes him by the most tender spot he can select, sets his pincers nipping and grinding in the most excruciating manner, and then rapidly detaching and leaving them in possession, darts off to the first sanctuary within his reach. To most living creatures the unceremonious sacrifice of limbs in this way would lead to almost immediate loss of life from hemorrhage, but a wise provision is also made for this contingency. The division taking place at a constricted portion of the joint of a limb admits of the vessels drawing themselves in, and so stopping the flow of blood. A thin membrane soon covers the stump, and in due time another limb replaces that which has been lost or cast away. In some localities the haunts of the Crab are discovered by fastening pieces of waste fish to the ends of short, strong lines, and then, after attaching long stones by their middles to the other ends, strewing them about among the rocks and pools; at the ebbing of the tide, these tell-tale stones are sought for as they rest outside and across the dwelling-places of the Crabs, which when found are not only “made a note of,” but the tenants either by hook or crook brought to light with little ceremony.

Some little judgment is required to select a thoroughly good Crab for the table, and as the choice usually lays amongst dead specimens, a few hints on the subject will not perhaps prove unacceptable. A male Crab is generally to be preferred to a female, on account of the larger development of claw, &c. The sexes may readily be distinguished by examining the flat, peak-shaped, flap-like tail, which will be found curled beneath the under-surfaces of the body. This in the male is narrow, whilst in the female it is wide and of different form. A good Crab should feel heavy in the hand, and on being sharply shaken no sound or movement of fluid heard. The large nippers should at the same time remain tucked tightly up, and not hang loosely from the body. The absence of freshness is a defect too obvious and important to need comment.

The proper mode of boiling Crabs has long been a subject on which doctors have disagreed. Who then shall decide? That there is cruelty associated with the taking away of life, it would be hard to deny, but the correctness of choice between gradual stewing in slowly-heating water, and being plunged at once into the seething, bubbling cauldron, requires “the revelations of a boiled crab” to clear up; and until a crustacean production under that or a like title appears, we shall continue to plunge our armour-clad victims in water at 212 degrees of Fahrenheit’s thermometer, and leave the question as to the propriety of our so doing to those who are disposed to grapple with the subject for its own sake.

The change of colour which takes place in many of the crustacea during the process of boiling, has long been a subject of remark. The common and edible Crabs of this country have their tints far less affected than the lobster, the peculiarly rich blue shade of whose shell when in a living state is too well known to need any lengthened description; this, as is well known, changes to a bright red in the cooking-pot, and the uniform of the police is exchanged for that of the line regiments. This strange metamorphosis, researches have shown to be entirely dependent on chemical laws. The pigment on which the blue shading and tint depend, is a peculiar fat-like substance, which possesses the singular property of becoming scarlet when subjected to 70 degrees of heat shown in the centigrade thermometer. A colouring matter of very similar properties was some time since discovered in the beaks and legs of certain birds.

The lobster pigment is soluble in spirits of wine, by which agent it can be extracted from the shell; but the colour changes at once from blue to red. And on adding either nitric or sulphuric acid, the charged spirit is changed to a green of a remarkably fast or permanent character. Who shall say, as fresh discoveries are made and new solvents brought to light, that lobster shells may not become more valuable than the appetising fish they once contained! We see no reason why the dormant sprite, who lies hid in the coat of sea mail, should not be roused from his long sleep and set to work with the other kobolds who do the will of the mighty magician chemistry; and little dreams the fascinating belle, who has been made “beautiful for ever,” how much those same kobolds have had to do with the process. Bismuth, from the deep-mine cavern, gives to the skin the pearly white so much prized: the cochineal bug, from the prickly cactus thickets, the roseate hue (“The Turkish Bloom of Health”) which is said, in the flowery language of the advertisers, to impart to the cheek the attractive lustre of the ripe peach. The elegant mauve dress, ribbons, and gloves, are “tinctured” by a toiling imp residing in gas tar. “Lovely things” in green too are industriously turned out by two quaint, but rather dangerous and mischievously disposed gentlemen of the elfish crew, Messrs. Arsenic and Copper, who work in partnership, and whose attractive joint productions some time since poisoned a number of the sea-green nymphs of a Parisian ballet. How far more appropriate and safe would it have been to draw from the rich stores of king Neptune the materials with which to dye the drapery of the stage mermaid and seaside beauty, and we hope ere long to see “the new lobster-shell green,” under some tremendously sonorous Greek name (without which success would be doubtful), “the fashionable colour.”

The juvenile members of most of our seaside communities are much given to crab-fishing, and may be seen from early morn to evening late, dangling their legs over some convenient rock, sea-wall, or landing-steps, and with a piece of twine to which a dainty morsel of fish offal has been tied, doing their best to induce some greedy young crabling to grasp it with his nippers, when, with a sudden jerk and triumphant shout, the deluded victim is pitched out high and dry before he knows what he is about, and is then tied by the leg and led about like a lilliputian pig, who strongly objects to either going to market or staying at home. Fortunately for him he is not very good to eat, or as a rule very large; still his captors, when they do secure him of even ordinary dimensions, treat him to a pot of boiling water, and let him go cheap. This description of crustacean is known as the Harbour or Shore Crab (Carcinus maenas), and is represented in the preceding cut. He is a weed of almost every soil, and a perfect pest to those who fish in estuaries and tidal rivers, nibbling off the bait in a manner past all endurance, and when the watchful angler, anticipating the presence of a plump and silvery fish at the end of the line, raises his fishing-rod aloft, there hangs instead, a green, mud-coloured little imp, clawing the air like an enraged spider, making himself in fact in every way obnoxious and disagreeable.

Then there are other members of the same amiable race, with whom he who fishes the sea with nets will not be long before he makes acquaintance. These are the swimming Crabs, of which there are numerous species. These differ materially from the kinds we have described, in habits, appearance, and structure. By the use of their powerful oar-like legs they are enabled to propel themselves through the water with great rapidity and precision, and by darting among the meshes of the fishing-nets they become so hopelessly entangled, that a “Fiddler Crab” (as it is sometimes called from the rapidity with which it works its elbows) in a trammel net, is often used by fishermen as a standard with which to compare cases of the most utter bewilderment. The annexed cut represents one of these, the Velvet Swimming Crab (Portunus puber).

The still, deep, lagunes, within the coral reefs, in the southern and eastern seas, contain creatures of this class most exquisite in form and colour, and we have often looked down into some clear, well-like gulf between the branching coralines, clustering sponges, and actinea of countless hues, and watched the marvellous episodes of deep-sea life there passing beneath; fringes of crystal arms, disc-like mouths, and far-stretching tendril-shaped legs, wave from every point and ledge, whilst crustaceans, as of animated enamel work, accompanied by fish, like living gems, troop restlessly in and out and to and fro, in an endless throng.

Anthozoa, those living, ocean blossoms, spread their petals of a thousand hues, whilst the family of Medusidæ float like shadows through the tranquil depths.

Spider Crabs are there, too, both here and in the seas, washing our own island, with limbs so long and attenuated, and bodies so small, that they look more like overgrown DADDY LONGLEGS going through a course of sea-bathing than aught else, and we almost begin to think they must be marine spiders after all, and wonder where the sea-flies are, and what sort of webs they would spin to catch them in. The Indian seas have inhabitants of the serpent order, which are by no means safe to meddle with. They, too, desport after their own manner:—

The subject of the annexed illustration is the common slender Spider Crab (Stenorynchus tenuirostris), frequently captured on our own coast. Some of these queer gentry, near relatives of his, are as prickly as a chestnut husk, and have claws like crooked tobacco-pipe stems. No cook even in the last stage of insanity could hope to utilize them.

Then we have the soft-tailed, Soldier, or Hermit Crabs, who, because they are insufficiently clad by nature, seize on the first convenient shell they can discover, and then, by adroitly introducing the point of the tail, slip into it, much as a skilful stage demon vanishes through a vampire trap. Vacant shells are not always selected as mansions; those with inhabitants are not unfrequently taken possession of, when a process of forcible ejectment is had recourse to, and the hapless mollusc is soon gobbled up, and his house occupied by the spoiler. Pagurus Bernhardus, the subject of the annexed illustration, is no doubt familiar to many of our readers, as most of the little salt-water ponds amongst the rocks and stones have one or more of these tiny hermitages in them. Whelk-shells are very commonly found inhabited by the pagurus we are describing, and large numbers, under the name of Crab Whelks, are collected, and used as bait, after the shell and hard structures have been removed by breaking them off with a hammer.

Pea Crabs there are also, living at free quarters in houses not their own; but of these we shall have more to say further on. The Hermits we find on our coasts are perfect pigmies when compared with some of the species found in and about the tropic seas, who, dwelling in the huge helmet-like shells with which these warm regions abound, spend almost as much of their lives out of the sea as in it, consume large quantities of vegetable matter, and appear capable of supporting life for some time without absolutely going into the water.

Tenantless mollusc shells are not the only dwelling places of the Hermits, and other species of Crabs, and they have, from periods of remote antiquity to our own day, been found in situations in which they apparently have no reasonable right to be. This has given rise to much learned disputation, and not a few wild theories and quaint conceits.

That matchless piece of nature’s handiwork, the Philippine Island sponge (see next page)—Venus’s Flower Basket, or Euplectella speciosa, of naturalists—which has recently attracted so much attention in the British Museum and among the scientific world, was, about a year since, accidentally hauled up from the bottom of the sea, entangled on a fish-hook, by a native who was fishing for rock cod off the Island of Zebu, one of the Philippine group. Since the first discovery, numerous specimens have been obtained in the same locality, and from 30l. (the price paid for the fisherman’s prize) the value has progressively become less. Still purchasers are numerous enough to make flower-basket hunting a remunerative occupation for some time to come. It is perfectly impossible, even with the aid of pictorial illustration, to give an adequate idea of the elegance and beauty of this extraordinary production. Of cornucopiæ form, and of the finest Brussels lace texture, it stands like a network vase among a tuft of crystal threads. The cover, like that of some antique flagon, crowns the top, and completes the strange resemblance to man’s most skilled and perfect productions. Venus herself might well be proud of such a flower-basket; but like many other things of beauty, there are mysteries round their growth and formation. One of these, is the almost invariable presence of the remains of one or more Crabs in the interior of this, to them, crystal prison, out of which escape is just as impossible as from a capsuled bottle. Many differences of opinion exist as to the mode by which the Crabs first obtained an entrance; there appears, however, little doubt that this is effected whilst the sponge is in an immature condition, and before the cover is woven. There is a young specimen which we have examined in the British Museum in this incomplete state, and it is questionable whether the basket-like tube is ever covered until it has reached maturity; when, although the sponge appears to cease growing in an upward direction, the power possessed by it to secrete the silicious matter of which the network is composed remains unimpaired, and, like a skilful artisan as he is, he at once repairs neatly such injuries as his crystal palace may sustain.