THE NATURAL 



ster attacked by the male, turned on her back, patiently 

 permitting him to stretch over her, enlacing her claws 

 and his pincers! Vision of a sabbat which Callot or 

 Dore would only have painted in fear. Perhaps one 

 would consider this before opening the armoured belly 

 of these beasts who have bred their species among algae, 

 and in holes of the rocks? The genital glands of crus- 

 taceans are excellent; people gladly eat those of the sea- 

 anemone; the only good part of these spiny animals. The 

 males of the greater crustaceans have erectile ejectory 

 canals, rising in the form of double prong between the 

 forefeet; the females are correspondingly provided with 

 two vulvae opening in the third sternal segment, or at 

 the base of the feet corresponding to this segment. Copu- 

 lation is effected by quick acts, reiterated two or three 

 times, lasting a quarter of an hour. The male of the 

 fresh water prawn who swims leaning on his side, holds 

 his female between his claws and progresses by bounds; 

 she is much smaller than he is. Same mechanism in 

 aselle and talitre or sea-flea. 



There are many singularities in the sexual habits of 

 small crustaceans, the male bopyre lives as parasite on 

 the female, who is four or five times larger; oddity in- 

 creased by the female herself being the parasite of the 

 palemon. It is she who forms the little bloatedness which 

 one notices, grayish when cooked, on the heads of shrimps, 

 turned pink. Fishermen state that this spot is a small 

 sole, but they also tell other yams: for example, that 

 anatifes, the peduncular mussels which one sees on 

 drift-wood are the embryos of wild-ducks, and one noble 

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