Some "Shell- fishes" 147 



And, so again, when he kills the snake and sees it lying 

 stretched out along the ground, he addresses the dead 

 viper with the caustic moral " This fate would never have 

 befallen you if you had lived as straight as you have died." 



The crab runs the fox a race, and as soon as his opponent 

 starts, catches hold of its tail. When the fox reaches the 

 winning-post it turns round to see how far the crab has got, 

 when the wily crustacean quietly drops off, crosses the 

 winning line, and startles the fox with " What ! come 

 at last, are you ? I've been here some time." 



"The scallop cordiall judged, the dainty whelk and limp, 

 The periwinkle, prawnes, the cockle and the shrimp," 



are all of ill-repute of being what a poet calls " a most im- 

 modest diet." (In Gay's poem " To a Young Lady" these 

 traditions are all noticed.) "The lobster, as an enemy to 

 serpents, was," says Moule, " sometimes used as an emblem 

 of temperance, and two lobsters fighting as an emblem of 

 sedition." The union of a lobster with the human form is 

 an impresa of very old date, but the families on the con- 

 tinent that bear this crustacean for a badge probably refer 

 it back to no earlier times than the chivalric days when 

 knights went forth to fight in that armour of overlapping 

 plates which were called "ecrivisses." But just as many 

 have adventitiously arrived at honour, so many others have 

 accidentally fallen into disrepute, and the lobster, recollect- 

 ing its traditional obliquities, may hardly go haughtily. Its 

 character in legend is very curious, for, while the crab is 

 always of good repute, the lobster is ever of bad. Very old 

 engravings show us a fool astride a lobster, and the signi- 

 ficance of that medal of the Pretender, in which the youthful 

 aspirant is shown in the arms of a Jesuit who rides a lobster, 

 conveys nothing to the credit of either the friar or the " fish." 

 Mercury in his baser aspect rides a cray-fish. Prawns and 

 shrimps are among the heraldic bearings of the Crafords 



