INTRODUCTION. 3 



Porcellio, — are greedily eaten by our poultry and by many of 

 the smaller birds, who find these exquisite titbits creeping 

 among stones, or at the roots of trees. We must look, too, 

 at the members of this class in another point of view j they 

 are pre-eminently the scavengers of the sea, removing and 

 assimilating many an object which would otherwise prove a 

 nuisance. On this part of the subject we may quote the 

 words of one who has long studied the subject both on our 

 own coasts and on the shores of foreign lands. Mr. Gosse 

 remarks : — 



" The Crabs are the scavengers of the sea ; like the wolves 

 and hyaenas of the land, they devour indiscriminately dead 

 and living prey. The bodies of all sorts of dead creatures 

 are removed by the obscene appetite of these greedy Crus- 

 tacea ; and there is no doubt that many an enormous Crab, 

 whose sapidity elicits praise at the epicure's table, has rioted 

 on the decaying body of some unfortunate mariner. But 

 what of that ? Let us imitate the philosophy of the negro 

 mentioned by Captain Crow. On the Guinea Coast, people 

 are buried beneath their own huts, and the Land-crabs are 

 seen crawling in and out of holes in the floor with revolting fa- 

 miliarity : notwithstanding which, they are caught and eaten 

 with avidity. A negro, with whom the worthy Captain re- 



