LOBSTERS. 101 



reefs, or on rocky ground, that, on a bite being felt and 

 the line drawn in, a steady drag is felt as though a 

 cuttlefish had grasped the bait ; on looking down into 

 sea beneath the boat, in all probability the Cray will be 

 seen in all his s^^ined armament, coming on at the end 

 of the line like a sea porcupine with horns. Some 

 care will be needed to coax him deftly onward until the 

 net is well under, or your line and Cray are likely to 

 part company. These thorn-clad heroes, "in their 

 spiked armour like Egyptian jyorke jngs^'' are not held 

 in as high esteem for the table as their more smoothly- 

 plated relations — their flesh being of harder texture 

 and of a sweet flavour is objected to by professed 

 lobster-eaters j still, to our taste, a well-conditioned 

 '' i:>ovhe inrj ^^ in the shape of a Crayfish, is by no means 

 to be despised. Some portions of the Pacific Ocean, 

 and the warm seas of the East, contain them in vast 

 numbers. Many spots on the coast of South America, 

 and the bays and inlets of the island of Juan Fernandez, 

 literally swarm with them \ and it is to be questioned 

 whether Eobinson Crusoe, or Man Friday either, would 

 have ever consented to leave that fertile and picturesque 

 locality if they had entertained the least idea that it 

 was surrounded by countless thousands of Crays in a 

 perfect fever of anxiety as to whose good fortime it 

 would be to get boiled first. 



Some idea may be formed of the abundance of 



