352 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST. 



CHAPTER XXXVIII. 



CANCER PAGURUS " THE EDIBLE CRAB." 



'* On the other side in one consort there sate 

 Cruell Revenge, and rancorous Despight, 

 Disloyal Treason, and hart-burning Hate ; 

 While gnawing Jealousy, out of their sight 

 Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bight ; 

 And trembling Feare still to and fro did fly, 

 And found no place where safe he shroud him might." 



MOST of our readers have, doubtless, seen some of the 

 numerous " happy families " exhibited in the streets 

 of London, consisting of most incongruous assort- 

 ments of the animal creation, all huddled together in 

 the same gigantic cage, and all looking as miserable 

 and woe-begone as happy families could easily do under 

 any circumstances, and yet we suspect the lot of these 

 poor prisoners to be comparatively enviable when 

 compared with that of the occupants of a tank into 

 which we recently introduced half a dozen specimens 

 of the common Crab whose name is at the head of 

 this chapter. Spenser, when he penned the lines we 

 have adopted as the appropriate introduction to a 

 brief history of their proceedings, might almost be 

 supposed to have been describing them from the life, 



