CHAPTER XX. 



CRAYFISHES. 



" Let me to crack live crawfish recommend." POPE. 



THERE'S such a difference between merely reading about 

 animals and seeing them and observing them yourself. I 

 wonder whether I can induce any of my readers to obtain, 

 watch, and examine a crayfish ! 1 Perhaps it is too much 

 to expect. But if any one of a practical turn of mind 

 should care to do so, a few lines and one shilling and three- 

 pence in stamps, enclosed and forwarded to Mr. Bolton, 62, 

 Balsall Heath Road, Birmingham, will produce by return 

 of post, a miniature lobster, or freshwater crayfish, all 

 alive, sprawling his legs, nipping around with his pincer 

 claws, arid flapping his broad tail. Place him in a deep 

 basin of fresh sweet water, and leave him to rest and 

 recover himself after his journey. If you wish to keep 

 him for sometime alive, change the water every day. He 

 breathes, by means of the gills we shall presently examine, 

 the air dissolved in the water ; and fresh pure water is to 

 him what pure fresh air is to us. There can be nothing 



1 The word crayfish is a corruption of the French ecrevisse, and has no 

 etymological connection with fish. 



