98 THE OCEAN. 



Bays he, " an instance in which, but for timely assist- 

 ance, the corporation of a royal borough would have 

 been deprived of its head, through the retentive 

 clutching of a Crab. The borough alluded to is 

 situated on a rocky part of the coast, where shell-fish 

 are so very abundant that they are hardly regarded 

 for any other purpose than as bait for the white 

 fishery. The official personage was a man of leisure; 

 and one favourite way of filling up that leisure was 

 the capture of Crabs, which, after much care, he had 

 learned to do by catching them in the holes of the 

 rocks, so adroitly, as to avoid their formidable pin- 

 cers. One day he had stretched himself on the top 

 of a rock, and thrusting his arm into a crevice below, 

 got hold of a very large Crab; so large, indeed, that 

 he was unable to get it out in the position in which 

 it had been taken. Shifting his position in order to 

 accommodate the posture of his prey to the size of 

 the aperture, he slipped his hold of the Crab, which 

 immediately made reprisals by catching him by the 

 thumb, and squeezing with so much violence, that 

 he roared aloud. But though there be a vulgar opi- 

 nion, of course an unfounded one, that Lobsters are 

 apt to cast their claws, through fear, at the sound of 

 thunder or of great guns, the thundering and shout- 

 ing of the corporation man had no such effect upon 

 the Crab, lie would gladly have left it to enjoy its 

 hole; but it would not quit him, but held him as 

 firmly as if he had been in a vice ; and though he 

 rattled it against the rocks with all the power that 

 he could exert, which, pinched as he was by the 

 thumb was not great ; yet he was unable to get out 



