RIVER CRAYFISH. 109 



rivers of Central India, basket traps of various sizes 

 and forms, but all alike in tlieir mode of operation, will 

 be found. Some we stumbled on while hunting among 

 the Bheels of Candeish were of elegant design, — trumpet 

 mouthed, and beautifully woven from the split-up fibres 

 of single bamboo-joints, the knot at the small end 

 being left to form a sort of plug-hole, through which 

 the bait was introduced. 



A. JluviatiUs shifts his shell, much in the same 

 manner as his salt-water cousins, and, like them, is 

 painfully nervous and retiring in his habits during the 

 hardening of the new case Avith which nature in due 

 time protects him. Like the sea lobster, the Cray is 

 wonderfully prolific, producing as many as 100,000 

 eggs in the breeding season, which are carried securel}'- 

 about for some time by the parent fish tucked up under 

 the abdomen, and defended by the lateral rows of legs 

 and claws. A notion prevails in some localities that 

 the goodness of water may be surely tested by boiling 

 a Cray in it, when, if the quality is all that could be 

 wished, the colour of the Cray should be clear and bright 

 red ; whereas, if impure, the fish is said to remain dull 

 and lustreless. This, although a very old opinion, 

 appears much on a par with the idea, equally old, that 

 a frog in a tea-kettle would prevent the water therein 

 contained from ever boiling. "We greatly fear, however, 

 that a good brisk fire would not only go far towards 



