ASTACUS. 103 



evidence of their pugnacity, look at their claws. One of 

 them is always a great deal smaller than the other. Observe 

 the left claw, with which the Lobster (like a human being 

 sparring) wards off the blows aimed at him. Examine the 

 right, or striking claw. That which now garnishes the 

 dexter limb is not the real original cheliform, but a sup- 

 plementary pair of pincers, thrown off long ago in some 

 midnight submarine brawl. In case of emergency your 

 thorough-bred Lobster parts with a claw, with as little con- 

 cern as a man tearing the tail off his coat in a hedge, when 

 a mad bull is after him. The late Sir Isaac Coffin, who 

 used to tell a great number of odd stories, was once witness, 

 he said, to a terrible battle between two armies of Lobsters 

 in the harbour of Halifax, in Nova Scotia. They fought, 

 he declared, with so much fury that the sea-shore was 

 strewn with their claws. Sir Isaac was the admiral on the 

 station, and ever afterwards, when he saw a Lobster, he 

 pointed to the disparity between the claws in corroboration 

 of his story.'" 



The " tail," or rather abdomen, of the Lobster, the joints 

 of which fold so beautifully on each other, suggested to 

 James "Watt the idea of a flexible pipe, which he con- 

 structed for some Water Company. 



