140 BY THE DEEP SEA. 



that in his time (early in the century), immense quantities were 

 eaten by the London poor. Whether there is any considerable 

 trade of this kind now I do not know ; but I remember how more 

 than thirty years ago I considered them very sweet and tooth- 

 some, and used to go as a boy to buy them, all alive, of an 

 old woman in one of that intricate maze of courts and alleys 

 that then existed where now the Royal Courts of Justice stand. 

 I think they were sold at about eight or ten for a penny. Had 

 they not been sold alive I should probably never have desired 

 to have them. 



When throwing aside the heavy bunches of Fucus that hang 

 over the rocks, in order that we may see their surfaces, we shall 



VELVET FIDDLER. 



catch sight of a more pugnacious crab even than Carcinus, 

 leaping, rather than running sideways, with such rapidity that 

 we need to be smart to catch it. Aye, and we need to have a 

 little nerve, or the Velvet Fiddler will alarm us into letting him 

 pass into the oblivion of the seaweed jungle, or one of those 

 rock-crevices which always seem to be in the right place to 

 afford sanctuary to a poor hunted crab. Most crabs are so 

 flattened that these cracks seem specially provided for them, 

 whereas the evolutionist will tell you it is the rock-haunting 

 crabs that have become specially adapted to find salvation 

 in these asylums. This is the crab we alluded to especially 



