HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



1S1 



must be boiled in the boat, to be first-rate, and 

 not only to be first-rate, but to be saleable. 

 " When they dies nateral, they dies with their tails 

 out straight, and they don't look sa purty, and 

 folks wunna buy 'em ; but if we biles 'em afore 

 they be dead, they tucks their tails in tidy under- 

 neath 'em." The smoky little stove under the 

 forecastle is set fuming, and the select Palamonidcc 

 are put into a saucepan with seawater and boiled 

 for fifteen minutes, when they are turned out into a 

 wicker basket, which acts as a strainer and lets the 

 hot water run off, and then the Starboard-watch 

 rushes to the gunwale and dashes the hot smoking 

 prawns, basket and all, into the sea alongside, 

 sousing them half a dozen times or so in the cold 

 waters. "It makes 'em crisp," he says, and they 

 certainly put on a much more roseate hue than they 

 wore before ; then, all glowing, pink, and crisp, 

 and shining, they are laid out in another basket, 

 and intermixed with a surprisiug quantity of coarse 

 kitchen salt, a good handful to about fifty, and 

 they are ready for sale after about three hours; 

 without the salt, they would be watery and taste- 

 less. The Starboard-watch takes the helm ; the 

 Second-mate, who is the Port-watch, proceeds to 

 operate in a similar manner upon some 300 middle- 

 sized prawns and large shrimps (the latter in boiling 

 become curiously mottled with opaque white, 

 recovering their natural or rather final colour when 

 plunged in the cold bath), worth about a shilling 

 per 100, and when he emerges, the prospective 

 powder-0iff» treats a couple of gallons of smaller 

 samples in the same fashion; these, irrespective of 

 genus or species, are designated "cup-shrimps," 

 and will be sold at a halfpenny the half-pint cup 

 in the small bye-streets and courts. We have 

 Mysis vulgaris, and our old friend Gammarus locusta 

 {vide September, 1S69, p. 197). 



Of the family Idotaa, we have Stenosoma linear e 

 {vide Sept., 1870, p. 198) and a shorter and thicker 

 species, Idotcea tricuspidata ; but here, under the 

 carapace of a prawn, causing one of those bulging 

 swellings we so often see in both prawns and 

 shrimps, is another of the Isopod tribe ; not a bit 

 like Stenosoma you will say; but, nevertheless, a 

 true Idotcea, called Bopyrus. 



Fig. 103. Bupyrus crangorum, x 10. Male and female. 



These creatures fasten on under the gill-covers 

 of prawns and shrimps. As they are often found 

 with their backs to the assailable portions of 

 their hosts, it has been thought that they may 

 only use their retreat as a dwelling-place, feed- 

 ing themselves upon the animalculse contained 

 in the water passing over the branchiae of their 

 landlords ; but we strongly suspect that they 

 take more than house-room from their enter- 

 tainers. 



Of the Mollusca, we have bagged Sepia officinalis, 

 Sepiola Atlantica, and Loligo media. There are so 

 many illustrated papers in previous numbers upon 

 Cuttlefish, that we need not speak of them again. 

 We have got Philine aperta, one of the slug-like 

 B nil a dee ; one solitary Top, Trochus cinereus ; and 

 one tiny littoral shell, Rissoa labiosa: the lingual 

 strap of the latter is very fine. 



Now take off your hats, and behold in reverent 

 silence the unchanged descendants of the first 

 vertebrate progenitors of the human race : these 

 are old-fashioned fellows, who have not departed 

 from the customs of their forefathers; ages ago 

 some wild adventurous speculators developed them- 

 selves desperately, and their progeny are now kings 

 and bishops and judges, and no one knows what ; 

 but these are the offspring of the steady-going old 

 " Square-toes," who clung to the good old ways of 

 the good old times; they hated selection, and 

 eschewed development ; this is the reason why they 

 are still only Ascidians, and instead of " saving " 

 Prance or "unificating" Germany, they are being 

 dragged up by the trawl and put into a pickle- 

 bottle. 



Fig. 104. Ascidia mentula. 



We have three — nay four varieties, Ascidia mentula, 

 A. aspersa, A. virginea, besides a Cynthia. 

 Last of all, we pick up a green sea-anemone with 



