102 HISTORY OF BRITISH CRUSTACEA. 



served by salting. According to that author, Lobsters are 

 much less abundant in Cornwall now than they were for- 

 merly. He says one fisherman used to take 640 in a week, 

 where now he perhaps does not take half that number in a 

 season. The reason assigned for this falling off is that the 

 fishing for congers is not followed as formerly, and it is 

 certain that the conger-eel feeds eagerly on them. It is 

 also likely that the great demand has diminished their num- 

 bers. Mr. Bell tells us that the principal supply in the 

 London market is from Norway, whence at least 600,000 

 are annually sent. The older fishermen in the Moray Firth 

 assured Mr. Gordon that the Lobsters on the Elginshire 

 rocky coasts were so diminished in numbers, fifty years ago, 

 by parties who supplied the London market, that they have 

 ever since been comparatively rare."* 



In Dickens's 'Household Words 'f there is an amusing 

 article devoted to Lobsters, from which we may make a 

 short extract. " They are a kind of marine Muscovites, 

 bristling with rage against every one, — fierce, hard, horny 

 and pugnacious, always tearing and rending something, 

 and losing their limbs with as much indifference as if they 

 belonged to some salt-water Czar. ... If you wish for 

 * Zoologist, p. 3684. | July 29, 1854. 



