BAITING LOBSTER-POTS. 83 



of grasping and pinching to those of his nimble cousin, 

 he rarely attempts to use them ; but folding them 

 together, and crumpling up his legs stiffly across his 

 breast, he is content to lie passive, and abide his fate. 

 You may take him up in your hand, turn him over, 

 and examine him ; not a limb will he move ; nay, you 

 may even put him in your coat-pocket, and carry him 

 for a mile, and, on taking him out, find him as 

 patiently resigned as when you put him in. 



As soon as the captives were secured, any pieces of 

 old bait that remained were shaken out into the boat, 

 to the no great delectation of our olfactories. This 

 was destined to be thrown overboard, but not here 

 upon the lobster-ground, lest it should interfere with 

 the temptation of the traps. Fresh bait was now intro- 

 duced : the fisherman, taking a piece of skate about as 

 big as his hand, pierced a hole through it with a mar- 

 ling-spike, to receive a wooden skewer, pointed at 

 one end and cut in a peculiar manner, with a sort of 

 shoulder in the middle. The skewer, thus baited, was 

 put through the side of the pot, and the point being 

 inserted between the close-set osiers of the mouth, it 

 was then tightly driven in with a stone. By this 

 contrivance the bait is fixed within the trap at such a 

 height as prevents the captives from getting at it 

 readily, while it cannot be reached from without. 



The peculiarly rough surface of the spider-crab 

 renders its shell a suitable nidus for the growth of 

 parasitic plants and animals ; and I think we did not 

 take an individual that was not studded more or less 



