4324 Tue ZooLocist—FrEBRuARY, 1875. 
going by the Dorsetshire name of “spiders,” and calling to mind 
the famous story of Professor Bell, who saw, in one of the back 
streets of Poole, near the water-side, a little girl standing by a small 
table on which was a plate containing two of these crabs, of 
moderate size, cooked and for sale. On the worthy Professor 
accosting her with, “Pray do they eat these crabs here?” she 
replied, with a look of great surprise at his ignorance, “ They ben’t 
crabs, sir; them’s spiders!” AtJersey I was informed that Octopus 
vulgaris is occasionally exposed for sale in the fish market, but I did 
not see any specimens; however, oddly enough, one of the first 
things I read in the ‘ Times,’ on my return home, was an account of 
a public dinner in connection with the Brighton Aquarium, at which 
that cephalopod had been served up as a delicacy. 
A curious-looking fish (with which I was not familiar), about a 
foot long, eyes very close together, and seeming almost all tail, 
was exposed on one of the slabs. I asked its name, and was 
informed that’ it was a sword-fish! Although not in the least 
resembling a Xiphias, I thought fourpence (the price asked for it) 
worth speculating in, to satisfy my curiosity. When I had leisure 
to examine it, it proved to be a specimen of the Trachinus Draco, 
or greater weever, and the cause of my want of recognition of it 
was the absence of the first dorsal, which had been cut off, but the 
opercular spines were intact. It seems, according to Yarrell (Brit, 
Fishes, vol. i. p. 22), that “The French have a police regulation, 
by which their fishermen are directed to cut off the spines before 
they expose the fish for sale, and in Spain there is a positive law, 
by which fishermen incur a penalty if they bring to market any fish 
whose spines give a bad wound, without taking them off.” As many 
of the laws and customs of the Channel Islands are continental, it 
is highly probable that the practice alluded to has been imported. 
I found the fish by no means unpalatable, although it was rather 
dry, tasting something like red mullet. The following quaint lines 
of dear old Warwickshire Drayton, quoted by Yarrell, aptly pourtray 
this somewhat rare and curious fish :— 
“ The weever, which although his prickles venom be 
By fishers cut away, which buyers seldom see, 
Yet for the fish he bears ’tis not accounted bad.” 
W. R. Hucues. 
Birmingham, December, 1874. 
