‘CRUSTACEA. 521 
it there the more quickly. Another species of Hermit Crab makes a 
companion of the mantled anemone. “ And we are assured,” says 
Moquin-Tandon, “ that when the crab dies its inconsolable friend is 
not long in succumbing also.” 
“Ts there not here much more than what our modern phy- 
siologists call automatic movements, the results of reflex sensorial 
action?” says Gosse. “The more I study the lower animals, the 
more firmly am I persuaded of the existence in them of psychical 
faculties, such as consciousness, intelligence, skill, and choice ; and 
that even in those forms in which as yet no nervous centres have 
been detected.” 
As an article of food we think that the lobster far excels the 
crab; like the latter, they have an amazing fecundity, each female 
producing from 12,000 to 20,000 eggs in a season ; and wisely is it so 
arranged, otherwise the consumption would soon exhaust the supply. 
In France the size of the marketable lobster is regulated by law, 
and fixed at twenty centimetres (eight inches) in length; all under 
that size are contraband. Every year the inhabitants of Blainville 
proceed to Chaussy to fish for lobsters. They are taken in baskets 
in the form of a truncated cone, the mouth of which is so arranged 
that the animal can.enter, but cannot get out. The numbers caught 
by each fisherman and his family in a season may be estimated at 
1,000 or 1,200, which realise to the family 1,300 or 1,400 francs, the 
season lasting about nine months. 
Lobsters are collected all round our own coast for the London 
market. On the Scottish shore they are collected and kept in per- 
forated chests floating on the water, until they can be taken away 
to market. From the Sutherland coast alone 6,000 to 8,000 
lobsters are collected in a season. This process goes on all round the 
coast, and as far as Norway, whence an enormous supply of the finest 
lobsters are obtained, for which something like £20,000 per annum 
is paid, all these contributions being conveyed to the Thames and 
Mersey in welled vessels. But these old-fashioned systems are being 
rapidly superseded by the construction of artificial storing ponds, or 
basins. Of these ponds Mr. Richard Scovell has erected one at 
Hamble, near Southampton, in which he can store with ease 50,000 
lobsters, which will thus keep in good condition for six weeks. 
Mr. Scovell’s tank is supplied from the coasts of France, Scotland, 
and Ireland, where fine lobsters abound. He employs three large 
and well-appointed smacks, each of which can carry from 5,000 to 
10,000. On the west coast of Ireland alone, it is said, 10,000 fine 
lobsters a week might be taken. 
