460 A CORNISH FAUNA. 



it is essential, and I have been informed that when a vessel has 

 been detained in harbour, it has been found necessary to go to 

 the open sea and back to renew the water in the hold that the 

 cargo may be kept alive. 



The master of the lobster smack has a method of dealing with 

 the fisherman that must not a little redonnd to his own advan- 

 tage. If the lobster exceeds the length of eleven inches from 

 snout to tail it is considered a full size fish or tale, of which the 

 price was (in 1833) 10s. per dozen ; but all that fall short of that 

 length are regarded as only amounting to half the price. 



A crab of the largest size can pass for no more than half the 

 value of a full lobster, but if less than eight inches across the 

 shell or carapace, they are half of a full or tale crab, and none 

 are admitted that measure less than four inches. 



Crab fishing is followed chiefly by the poorer fisherman, or by 

 those whose activity has given way to the infirmities of age. It 

 was formerly more profitable than now, and seems to be gradu- 

 ally decreasing. The lobster smacks that pass along the Cornish 

 coast collecting the produce of the fishing of the two or three 

 preceeding weeks, are mostly from Southampton, but the destin- 

 ation of the cargo seems to be the port of London. 



In the report for 1843, of the Eoyal Polytechnic Society, Mr. 

 Couch published a paper on the process of exuviation in crabs 

 and lobsters, and again in the report of the same society for 

 1854, he published " a particular description of some circum- 

 stances hitherto little known, connected with the process of 

 exuviation in the common edible crab ;" in the latter communi- 

 cation he demonstrated the manner in which the larger claws 

 split previously to the old shell being cast. 



In the report of the recent commission (1877) on crabs and 

 lobsters, the evidence went to prove that there was no decrease 

 in the quantity of animals taken but that there is a larger de- 

 mand, and a greater number of fishermen. The price of crabs 

 is now (1877) 15s. per doz. for males, and 3s. perdoz. for females. 



Cancer insocrenatus. — Couch, Cornish Fauna, 1838, p. 69-70. 



''Carapace large, oval, somewhat elevated in the middle; points 

 of the nippers not spoon-shaped. Legs short, compressed, those 

 which are prehensile furnished above with a crest formed of a 



