October 2, 1899.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



225 



the species, Squille mantU,is abundant in the Mediterranean, 

 nor can there be any doubt that among the border tribes 

 of that favoured lal^e it is commonly eaten, and its meat 

 considered uncommonly good. 



In the case of the Crustacea Macrura, qualms are less 

 likely to arise. There is so great a general resemblance 

 among numerous species respectively of shrimp or prawn 



Phrosina semilunata, Rissu. (Magnified.) 



or lobster that ignorance raises a barrier against repugnance. 

 All unawares we might be tricked into eating a Pati'Iahts 

 montaijui in mistake for a common prawn. Against 

 practical jokes of this kind, the only true defence is a 

 diligent study of the karkinokosm. Even in England 

 prawns and shrimps of several species are sold without 

 distinction, so that the heedless may at any time be mixing 

 up Leaniier seiratus (Pennant) and Leander squilla (LLnn.) 

 " in their midst " without knowing it. On the Continent 

 they have a prawn which is neither a Pandalus nor a 

 Leander, but a PeiuBUf^. This is affirmed to be of much 

 finer flavour than the common lobster or crayfish. As the 

 names just quoted indicate, prawns belong to more than 

 one genus. By many names men call them, in many seas 

 they dwell. They are, in fact, so divided up into genera 

 and species that none with a light heart can hope to know 

 them all, each clearly apart from the rest. They do not 

 all live in the ocean, but many in fresh waters. They 

 are not all of one size, but some large as lobsters. 

 Some have three pairs of their legs fashioned into 

 chelipeds, some only two. In some the chelipeds of one 

 pair are enormously elongated. Some have the eyes boldly 

 prominent. In others, as Alpheus, the eyes are beneath, 

 just gleaming through, the semi-pellucid carapace. The 

 great river prawn of tropical America, Palcemon Jamaicetms 

 (Herbst), is freely eaten* In regard to Colima, in Mexico, 

 Miss M. J. Rathbun quotes the statement that this prawn 

 " is offered in the market there as a choice article of food, 

 especially on Fridays and Sundays." From this one may 

 infer that it serves equally well for fasting and feasting. 

 Shrimps also have their grades and distinctions. It would 

 be unmannerly to confound the common shrimp, Crangon 

 vulgaris, with Sclerocrangon horeas, an Arctic species of 



noble proportions and prominent armour. They have in 

 common the first pair of legs subchelate, that is, as before 

 explained, with the finger closing down upon the palm 

 margin of the hand instead of closing against an opposable 

 thumb. But in spite of this obvious sign of near relationship 

 the SderocrarKjon may disdain the shrimp of commerce on 

 account of its own superiority in size and strength and 

 armature. On the other hand, to humble 

 its pride, we learn from Kroyer that when 

 his party at Spitzbergen, in 1838, found it 

 so abundant that they began to use it for 

 food, in consequence of a specially rank 

 flavour it met with no approbation. 



On the crayfishes and their distribution 

 over the fresh waters of the world, let the 

 writings of Erichsen and Huxley and Hagen 

 and Faxon be consulted. Then a man will 

 know where to go for the large or the small 

 sorts, and having ascertained the branchial 

 formula and the true name of each, he will 

 be able to eat with a good conscience and a 

 well ordered mind. Nay more, he will be 

 able to supply the information about which 

 those authors have not been sufficiently 

 thorough, as to whether the most enjoyable 

 repasts can be made of Cambarus or Potani- 

 ohiits, of Clieraps or Engaeus, of Astacoide 

 or another. For the last named he must go 

 to Madagascar. Cheraps he will find in 

 New Holland. He can dig for Engaeus in 

 Tasmania. 



Of lobster-like animals in Great Britain, 

 we eat the river crayfish, the common lobster, 

 the Norway lobster, and the rock lobster or 

 crawfish. The last of these differs very 

 obviously from the first three by the great size 

 i and stiffness of its second antennie, and by the comparative 

 ; feebleness of its first legs which do not form nippers or 

 chelipeds. Among the other three, which all and severally 

 have three pairs of chelipeds, the graceful Norway lobster 

 is easily distinguished by the much lidged and denticulate 

 character of its long and slender front pair. A correspon- 

 dent tells me that this crustacean is sold in Edinburgh at a 

 shilling a dozen, and that he has seen the shores of the 

 Firth of Forth strewn with them after a storm. As to the 

 common lobster and the crayfish, in addition to the great 

 difference in size and to the fact that one lives in salt 

 water and the other in fresh, there are distinctions easy to 

 observe in the rostrum and the second antenns. In the 

 latter, the exopod or outer branch attached to the second 

 joint is proportionally much larger in the crayfish than it 

 is in the lobster. Huxley, after explaining minutely the 

 structure of the crayfish, especially recommends the 

 student to compare a lobster with it in the various points 

 which he has been discussing. So far as most of the 

 points are concerned the student may eat both crayfish 

 and lobster before commencing the comparison. He 

 will pass with an increase of zest from the meat to 

 the mechanism. Should he still need encourage- 

 ment, he may have recourse to Dr. Herrick's valuable 

 work on the American lobster. Not only is that a cousin- 

 german to our own, but specimens of it are sometimes 

 delivered alive in the markets of London and Paris. The 

 New World may well have a few to spare, since, according 

 to Herrick, "about three million lobsters are said to be 

 taken in the British Isles in the course of a year, while the 

 total number captured on the North Atlantic coasts of 

 America has undoubtedly in some years reached close to 

 , one hundred millions." Though, however, the true 



