98 THE OCEAN. 
says he, “an instance in which, but for timely assist- 
ance, the corporation of a royal borough would have 
been deprived of its head, through the retentive 
clutching of a Crab. The borough alluded to is 
situated ona rocky part of the coast, where shell-fish 
are so very abundant that they are hardly regarded 
for any other purpose than as bait for the white 
fishery. The official personage was a man of leisure; 
and one favourite way of filling up that leisure was 
the capture of Crabs, which, after much care, he had 
learned to do by catching them in the holes of the 
rocks, so adroitly, as to avoid their formidable pin- 
cers. One day he had stretched himself on the top 
of a rock, and thrusting his arm into a crevice below, 
got hold of a very large Crab; so large, indeed, that 
he was unable to get it out in the position in which 
it had been taken. Shifting his position in order to 
accommodate the posture of his prey to the size of 
the aperture, he slipped his hold of the Crab, which 
immediately made reprisals by catching him by the 
thumb, and squeezing with so much violence, that 
he roared aloud. But though there be a vulgar opi- 
nion, of course an unfounded one, that Lobsters are 
apt to cast their claws, through fear, at the sound of 
thunder or of great guns, the thundering and shout- 
ing of the corporation man had no such effect upon 
the Crab. He would gladly have left it to enjoy its 
hole; but it would not quit him, but held him as 
firmly as if he had been in a vice; and though he 
rattled it against the rocks with all the power that 
he could exert, which, pinched as he was by the 
thumb was not great; yet he was unable to get out 
