FISH AS FATHERS. 171 



their spawn in its native surroundings. Once more, 

 crabs pass their earlier larval stages as free-swimming 

 crustaceans, somewhat shrimp-like in appearance, and 

 as agile as fleas : it is only by gradual metamorphosis 

 that they acquire their legs and claws and heavy pedes- 

 trian habits. Now there are certain kinds of crab, like 

 the West Indian land-crabs (those dainty morsels whose 

 image every epicure who has visited the Antilles still 

 enshrines with regret in a warm corner of his heart), 

 which have taken in adult life to walking bodily on 

 shore, and visiting the summits of the highest mountains, 

 like the fish of Deucalion's deluge in Horace. But once 

 a year, as the land-crabs bask in the sun on St. 

 Catherine's Peak or the Fern Walk, a strange instinctive 

 longing comes over them automatically to return for a 

 while to their native element ; and, obedient to that 

 inner monitor of their race, down they march in 

 thousands, velut agmine facto, to lay their eggs at their 

 leisure in Port Eoyal harbour. On the way, the negroes 

 catch them, all full of rich coral, waiting to be spawned ; 

 and Chloe or Dinah, serves them up hot, with bread- 

 crumbs, in their own red shells, neatly nestling between 

 the folds of a nice white napkin. The rest run away, 

 and deposit their eggs in the sea, where the young hatch 

 out, and pass their larval stage once more as free and 

 active little swimming crustaceans. 



Well, crabs, I need hardly explain in this age of 

 enlightenment, are not fish ; but their actions help to 

 throw a side-light on the migratory instinct in salmon, 

 eels, and so many other true fish which have changed 

 with time their aboriginal habits. The salmon himself, 



