7320 Crustacea. 



light upon our proceedings. Eriocheir, defunct and desiccated, shall 

 transport us in imagination to scenes that will linger long in the 

 memory. 



On the banks of the Yang-tsze-kiang are tracts of low swampy land 

 haunted by curlews, snipe and plover, where water-buffaloes, attended 

 by groups of noisy Mima-birds, alternately ruminate and wallow in 

 the mire, and which are irreclaimable even by the patient industry of 

 the Chinese husbandman. Scattered over these swampy plains are 

 certain sedgy pools. The bottom is soft mud, and the water, though 

 it looks black, is very clear. The reed, the Iris and the buUrush 

 grow in the water, and fringe the peaty margin. Over their emerald 

 swords and spears often hangs the little bluebacked kingfisher, and 

 up to his knees in water stands watchfully the snow-while padi-bird. 

 Certes, there there are fish in these said ponds, and the waters are 

 peopled with noisy frogs. Some portions of the adjoining ground 

 are pierced like a cullender, and the holes are the work of the crab 

 with a bloody hand {Pachysoma hoematocheir of De Haan), but as 

 yet there is no trace of he of the hairy hand. 



As in England boys take possession of ponds, moorlands and com- 

 mons, and disport themselves therein, robbing the humble-bee, stoning 

 frogs and troubling the mind of the gamekeeper, so do the urchins of 

 the Flowery Land resort to these oozy pools for profit and recreation. 

 With an artfully-fashioned wicker-basket, narrow at the top and 

 sloping at the sides, the pig-tailed boy advances cautiously into the 

 yielding mud, probes with his toes the overhanging banks, or plunges 

 both his arms beneath the spongy roots. Anon a " something" is 

 adroitly transferred to the basket hung about his neck, which " some- 

 thing" on examination turns out Eriocheir japonicus. He is a crab 

 dark olive and freckled, flat-backed and apathetic, by no means 

 nimble on his pins, nor aggressive with his hirsute claws. Placed on 

 the ground, he shambles along sideways towards the water, never 

 moving in an inland direction, and, when possible, speedily makes 

 himself invisible beneath the soft, black mud. He is rightly placed 

 between Trichopus and Utica, and belongs to the fresh-water mem- 

 bers of the Grapsus family. Strolling through the unsavoury pur- 

 lieus of the village of Woosung, I notice in all the fish-shops long 

 strings of these crabs, which, from their abundance in the market, 

 seem to be admired articles of diet among the poorer Chinese. For 

 half a mace I purchase two strings, each of nine full-grown Eriocheirs. ■ 



When I again make the acquaintance of our hairy-handed friend I 

 am in that paradise-island, Tsu-Sima. We watered ship in the bight 



