August 



XXXI 



How truly did Charles Kingsley write in the Water 



Babies : ' All the ingenious men, and all the 

 Crustaceans . ._ , ,. . . ., . 



scientific men, and all the fanciful men in 



the world, with all the old German bogey painters into 

 the bargain, could never invent anything so curious 

 and ridiculous as a lobster.' A casual observer might 

 conclude that a lobster, being cased in plate armour 

 cap-a-pie, should be more immune from injury than 

 most other creatures. He cannot bark his shins, nor 

 sprain an ankle, nor suffer from toothache (which, I 

 take it, constitute three of the sorest minor miseries of 

 human existence), seeing that he possesses neither shins, 

 ankles, nor teeth. It is true that, being insatiably 

 pugnacious, he may lose a limb or two in intercourse 

 with his kind, but pazienza ! the lost member will be 

 replaced in a short time. 



A lobster's armour has but one defect; it requires 

 to be shed at intervals. The creature thrives and 

 grows, but his rigid panoply remains of the original 

 size; wherefore what was at Christmas a faultless fit, 

 has become by Eastertide unendurably tight. It is 

 calculated that a four-year-old lobster, measuring ten 

 inches in length, has outgrown and had to cast away 



