478 THE OCEAN WOELD. 



the herbalist, and in his day by many others, to be the egg from 

 which the barnacle goose was produced passing over these ocean 

 tribes, we reach the Crustaceans the Insects of the Sea ; of greater 

 size, force, and voracity than any land insect with which we are 

 acquainted. They are armed, also, at all points ; for, in place of the 

 coriaceous tunic, they are clothed in calcareous armour, both hard and 

 strong, and bristling with coarse hairs, spiny tubercles, and even 

 serrated spines. 



The Crustaceans have nearly all of them claws, formidably hooked 

 and toothed, which they employ as pincers, both in offensive and 

 defensive war. They have been compared to the heavily-armed knights 

 of the middle ages at once audacious and cruel ; barbed in steel from 

 head to foot, with visor and corslet, arm-pieces and thigh-pieces 

 nothing, in fact, is wanting to complete the resemblance. 



These marine marauders live on the sea-coast, among the rocks, and 

 near the shore. Some few of them frequent the deep waters, others 

 hide themselves in the sand or under stones, while the common crab 

 (Carcinus moenas, Leach) loves, the shore almost as much as the salt 

 water, and establishes itself accordingly under some moist cliff over- 

 hanging the sea, where it can enjoy both. 



One of the necessary consequences of the condition of these animals, 

 enclosed in a hard shell, is their power of throwing it off. The solidity 

 of their calcareous carapace would effectually prevent their growth, 

 but at certain determinate periods Nature despoils the warrior of his 

 cuirass ; the creature moults, and the calcareous crust falls off, and 

 leaves it with a thin, pale, and delicate tunic. In this state the Crus- 

 tacean is no longer worthy of its name its skin has become as vulner- 

 able as that of the softest mollusc ; but it has the instinct of weakness 

 it retires into lonely places, and hides its shame in some obscure 

 crevice, until another vestment, more suitable for resistance, and adapted 

 to its increased size, has been restored. 



The Crustacean has not a vertebral column. The covering of the 

 Crustacean consists of a great number of distinct pieces, connected 

 together by means of portions of the epidermis which have not yet 

 become hardened, in the same way as the bones in the skeleton of the 

 vertebrata are connected by cartilages, the ossification of which only 

 takes place in old age. The covering of the Crustacean consists of a 

 series of rings varying in number, the normal number of the body- 



