CHAPTER IX. 



THE LOBSTER AND THE CRAB. 



" If like a crab you could go backward." SHAKESPEARE. 



HE LOBSTER has been happily described as 

 "a standing romance of the sea:" an animal 

 whose clothing is a shell, which it casts away 

 once a year in order that it may assume a 

 larger suit ; an animal whose flesh is found in its tail and 

 legs, and its hair in the inside of its breast ; whose 

 stomach is in its head, and is changed annually for a 

 new one, which begins its brief career by devouring its 

 predecessor ; an animal which carries its eggs within its 

 body until they become fruitful, and then bears them 

 outwardly under its tail ; an animal which can throw off 

 its legs when it finds them troublesome, and in a short 

 time can replace them with others ; and, finally, an 

 animal whose quick, keen eyes are placed in a pair of 

 movable horns. 



The reader, if he had never seen a lobster, would pro- 

 bably conclude, from this description, that it was an 

 altogether anomalous and abnormal creature, living a 



