390 DESCRIPTION OF THE LOBSTER. [CHAP. ix. 



I have no intention of describing the whole members 

 of the Crustacea ; they are much too numerous to admit of 

 that, ranging as they do from the comparatively giant-like 

 crab and lobster down to the millions of minute insects which 

 at some places confer a phosphorescent appearance on the 

 waters of the sea. My limits will necessarily confine me to 

 a few of the principal members of the family the edible 

 Crustacea, in fact ; and these I shall endeavour to speak about 

 in such plain language as 1 think my readers will understand, 

 leaving out as much of the fashionable "scientific slang" as I 

 possibly can. 



The more we study the varied Crustacea of the British 

 shores, the more we are struck with their wonderful forma- 

 tion, and the peculiar habits of their members. I once heard 

 a clergyman at a lecture describe a lobster in brief but 

 fitting terms as a standing romance of the sea an animal 

 whose clothing is a shell, which it casts away once a year in 

 order that it may put on a larger suit an animal whose flesh 

 is in its tail and legs, and whose hair is in the inside of its 

 breast, whose stomach is in its head, and which is changed 

 every year for a new one, and which new one begins its life 

 by devouring the old! an animal which carries its eggs 

 within its body till they become fruitful, and then carries 

 them outwardly under its tail ; an animal which can throw 

 off its legs when they become troublesome, and can in a brief 

 time replace them with others ; and lastly, an animal with 

 very sharp eyes placed in movable horns. The picture is not 

 at all overdrawn. It is a wondrous creature this lobster, and 

 I may be allowed a brief space in which to describe the curi- 

 ous provision of nature which allows for an increase of growth, 

 or provides for the renewal of a broken limb, and which 

 applies generally to the edible Crustacea, 



The habits of the principal Crustacea are now pretty well 

 understood, and their mode of growth is so peculiar as to reri- 



