NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Where found Various food. 



by the flavor communicated to their flesh by 

 them. 



There are great quantities of these fish in the 

 river Obra, on the borders of Silesia; but the 

 people find them scarcely eatable, because of a 

 bitter aromatic flavor, very disagreeable in food. 

 It has lately been observed, that the calamus 

 aromaticus STOWS in vast abundance on the banks 



O 



of that river, and that these creatures feed very 

 greedily upon its roots. These have a very re- 

 markable bitterness mixed with their aromatic 

 flavor, while fresh, which goes oft' very much 

 in the drying; and on comparing the taste of 

 these roots with that of the craw fish, there re- 

 mains no doubt of the one being owing to the 

 other. 



They also abound in the river Don, in Mus- 

 covy, where they are laid in heaps to putrify, 

 after which the stones called crabs eyes are pick- 

 ed out. These animals are very greedy of flesh, 

 and flock in great numbers about carcases 

 thrown into the water where they are, and never 

 leave them while any remains; they also feed 

 on dead frogs when they come in their way. In 

 Switzerland there are some craw fish which are 

 red when they are alive, and others blueisb. 

 Some kinds of them also will never become red 

 even by boiling, but continue blackish. 



The craw fish discharges itself of its stomach, 

 and, as Geoffrey thinks, of its intestines too. 

 These, as they putrify arrtf dissolve, serve for 



