FOOD AND TO SPARE. 261 



is made for the casting of the shell of the crab. A very 

 domestic shell-fish is our friend, and so sociable in his 

 ways that we cannot ascribe the origin of the term 

 11 crabbed" to the known surliness of his species. He 

 walks along the carpet molesting no one, and at four 

 o'clock, when the family meal is served, never fails to 

 ask leave to share in the repast by vigorous taps on the 

 side of the aquarium. 



Philosophers, moreover, and political economists, 

 puzzled with the problem of how to provide food com- 

 mensurate with the increase of the world's population, 

 are seriously trying to convince us that the ocean is 

 rich in substances more precious than coral, pearls, and 

 amber ; that it is, in fact, the great storehouse within 

 which the Universal Parent has laid up exhaustless 

 supplies of food, waiting to be drawn forth by human 

 labour and intelligence. It is indeed most marvellous 

 that multitudes should be pining with hunger in a land 

 like ours, literally set in an ocean of plenty. We may 

 be unable to indulge in the luxury of hippophagy, horse- 

 flesh being costly; but with the sea as our fish-pond, 

 and pisciculture capable of endless development alike 

 in salt water and in fresh, only the laziest or stupidest 

 of men, or the sick and the helpless, should be heard 

 bemoaning themselves that they perish with hunger. 

 Truly in our Father's house there is food and to spare. 

 The green crested waves, glancing in the breeze, are as 

 suggestive of plenty as are the harvest-fields loaded 

 with the products of the land. Nay, agriculture yields 

 no such abundant and inexpensive harvests as may be 

 reaped in rivers and oceans teeming with animal life, 

 rich in the choicest elements of nutrition. 



" Oh, what an endless work have I in hand, 

 To count the Sea's abundant progeny ! 

 Whose fruitfulle seede farre passeth those inland, 

 And also those which wonne in the azure sky; 

 For much more eath to tell the starres on hy, 

 Albe they endless seem in estimation, 

 Then to recount the Sea's posterity, 



