LAND-CEABS. 273 



Another point of controversy at one period existed in reference 

 to the power of crustaceans to replace their broken limbs, or 

 occasionally to dispense, at their own good pleasure, with a limb, 

 when it is out of order, with the absolute certainty of replac- 

 ing it. 



When the female Crustacea retire in order to undergo their 

 exuviation, they are watched, or rather guarded, by the males ; 

 and if one male be taken away, in a short time another will 

 be found to have taken his place. I do not think there is 

 any particular season for moulting ; the period differs in differ- 

 ent places, according to the temperature of the water and 

 other circumstances, so that we might have shell-fish (and 

 white-fish too) all the year round were a little attention paid 

 to the different seasons of exuviation and egg-laying. 



The mode in which a hen lobster lays her eggs is curious : 

 she lodges a quantity of them imder her tail, and bears them 

 about for a considerable period ; indeed, tiU. they are so nearly 

 hatched as only to require a very brief time to mature them. 

 When the eggs are first exuded from the ovary they are very 

 small, but before they are committed to the sand or water th^ey 

 increase considerably in size, and become as large as good-sized 

 shot. Lobsters may be found with eggs, or " in -berry " as it is 

 called, aU the year round ; and when the hen is in process of 

 depositing her eggs she is not good for food, the flesh being poor, 

 watery, and destitute of flavour. 



When the British Crustacea are in their soft state they are 

 not considered as being good for food ; but, curiously enough, 

 the land-crabs are most esteemed whUe in that condition. The 

 epicure who has not tasted " soft crabs " should hasten to make 

 himself acquainted with one of the most delicious luxuries of 

 the table. The eccentric land-crab, which lives ^far inland 

 among the rocks, or in the clefts of trees, or burrows in holes 

 in the earth, makes in the spring-time an annual pilgrimage to 

 the sea in order to deposit its spawn, and the young, guided by 

 an unerring instinct, return to the land in order to live in the 

 rocks or burrow in the earth like their progenitors. In the fish- 

 world we have something nearly akin to this. W« have the 

 salmon, that spends one-half its life in the sea, and the other 

 half in the fresh water ; it proceeds to the sea to attain size and 

 strength, and returns to the river in order to perpetuate its kind. 

 The eel, again, just does the reverse of all this : it goes down to 

 the sea to spawn, and then proceeds up the river to live ; and 



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