FOOD FROM THE CRUSTACEANS AND MOLLUSCA. 393 



Madame Boke (the governor's wife) drew the casters and 

 salad bowl near her, as I at first supposed, to give us a 

 specimen of her tact in salad-dressing ; but on seeing a 

 servant approach with a parcel handsomely done up 

 in green leaves, dripping with water, and observing a 

 smile of archness playing on the features of her ladyship 

 as she received it from him, I began to suspect it was 

 only in preparation for some bonne bouche, peculiarly epi- 

 curean in its character. Such it proved to be, for on 

 carefully untying it, while her eye brightened more and 

 more with pleasantry, she suddenly scattered the con- 

 tents, a quantity of live shrimps, as pure and transparent 

 as could be, and as sprightly as crickets, over the cresses, 

 and dashing the cruet of vinegar upon the whole, caught 

 up a half dozen of the delicate creatures in the leaves of 

 the salad and tossed them with a laugh into her mouth, 

 by way of encouragement to us to join in the course. 

 The captain is too courteous a gentleman to stop short of 

 any civility due to the lady of the house, and consider- 

 ing this a kind of challenge, went through the. movement 

 of taking a similar quantity in his lingers, and in raising 

 it to his mouth, whether with the intention of following 

 the example farther on or not, I cannot say ; but ruse 

 or not, I saw one at least of the nimble fry hop fairly 

 down his throat." 



From the small port of St. Gilles-sur-Vie, in the depart- 

 of Vendue, there are sent annually to Paris during the 

 season (which lasts from April to October) 26,000 lbs. 

 of shrimps worth Is. 3d. per pound. The species are 

 Pakemon serratus and P. squilla, called locally " crevettes " 

 and " chevrettes." The whole quantity taken in France in 

 1879 was stated at 1,647,588 kilogrammes (3,600,000 lbs.) 



The small pea crab {Pinnotheres pisum), which lives 

 within the shell of the common American oyster, is much 

 valued by oyster-eaters in the United States. In open- 

 ing a large quantity of oysters these little crabs are col- 

 lected apart, and serve to gratify the palate of gourmands. 

 They are only seven-twentieths of an inch long, by two- 

 fifths wide. 



