6 CRAB. SHRlMPj AND LOBSTER LORE. 



like box in which the heart and other viscera are 

 lodged. That well-known yellow delicacy known as 

 the cream or fat of the Crab is liver, and nothing else. 

 The lungs or gills are formed by those fringe-like 

 appendages popularly known as the dead men^s fingers. 

 The shell- sliif ting process before referred to, is common 

 to all crustaceans ; and our friend the Crab, when he 

 feels his corselet getting rather tight for him, manages, 

 by some extraordinary process, not only to extricate 

 himself from it, together with his shell gauntlets and 

 the powerful nippers with which he is provided, but 

 performs other feats, compared with which those of 

 the Davenport Brothers sink into utter insignificance ; 

 and we opine that, had those eminent spiritualists been 

 called on to do by the aid of all their shadowy accom- 

 plices one half of that which Cancer and his cousins the 

 lobsters and cravs do unassisted, no Tom Fool's knot 

 would have been needed to complete their discomfiture, 

 i^ot only are the too-constricted shell and claw cover- 

 ings cast aside, but also the outer cornea of the eyes ; 

 the stem sheath of the eyes j the Iming of the stomach 

 with the internal teeth j the internal bones of the 

 thorax ; the lining membrane of the ear, and that cover- 

 ing the lungs ; thus very nearly turning themselves in- 

 side out, as well as getting rid of their old suits of clothes. 

 But all these wonderful operations are not performed 

 v»'ith the ease with which the chrysalis sets free the 



