40 CRAB, SHRIMP, AND LOBSTER LORE. 



himself, was supposed to need tlie services of a vigilant 

 submarine watcliman, sharp of ear and keen of eye — a 

 sort of conciej'ffe, in fact — to attend to the door and 

 keep out all unwelcome visitors. 



The researches of Lamarck go to show that the 

 ancient writers were generally of opinion that these 

 Crabs were especially emplo}'ed as general guardians 

 and inseparable companions to the Pinna, that they 

 had one common birth, and that the one could not 

 exist without the other, — the absence of vision in the 

 Pinna being compensated for by the vigilance of the 

 Crab, whilst in matters requiring power and resistance, 

 Cancel" had only to give the required sign by a gentle 

 nip, when his partner, with the strength of a sea-giant, 

 shut his shell-trap-door on all the inquisitive, intrusive 

 little fish within the fatal portal, when the firm of 

 Pinna and Crah made remarkably short reckonings 

 with them. We read that in 1749, Hasselquist, the 

 distinguished naturalist, undertook a voyage to the 

 Levant, and corresjDonded with Linnaeus during his 

 travels. In one of his communications he thus writes 

 from Smyrna: — "Amongst others they sell here a 

 seijia, or cuttle-fish, which by them is called QKromolia. 

 It has only eight tentacles all of equal length. The 

 whole animal is a foot long, and thick in proportion. 

 Of this the Greeks have related an anecdote which 

 I think remarkable. The Pinna muricata, or great 



