228 POPULAR HISTORY OF THE AQUAEIUM. 



that the Crab — a genus comparatively recent in its appear- 

 ance in creation — is less embryotic in its character and higher 

 in its standing than the more ancient Lobster, my uncle re- 

 garded the Lobster as a more intelligent animal than the 

 Crab. The hole in which the Lobster lodges has almost al- 

 ways two openings, he has said, through one of which he 

 sometimes contrives to escape when the other is stormed 

 by the fisher ; whereas the Crab is usually content, ' like the 

 rat, devoid of soul,' with a hole of only one opening ; and 

 besides, gets so angry in most cases with his assailant, as 

 to become more bent on assault than escape, so loses him- 

 self through sheer loss of temper. And yet the Crab has, 

 he used to add, some points of inteUigence in him too. 

 When, as sometimes happened, he got hold, in his dark 

 narrow recess in the rock, of some luckless digit, my uncle 

 showed me how that after the first tremendous squeeze he 

 began always to experiment upon what he had got, by al- 

 ternately slackening and straitening his grasp, as if to 

 ascertain whether it had life in it or was merely a piece of 

 dead matter ; and that the only way to escape him on these 

 trying occasions was to let the finger lie passively between 

 his fingers as if it was a bit of stick or tangle, when, appa- 

 rently deeming it such, he would be sure to let it go ; 



