274 THE WOELD OF FISH. 



at certain seasons it may be seen in myriad quantities making its 

 way up stream. The march of the land-crabs is a singular and in- 

 teresting sight : they congregate into one great army, and travel 

 in two or three divisions, generally by night, to the sea ; they 

 proceed straight forward, and seldom deviate from their path un- 

 less to avoid crossing a river. These marching crabs eat up all 

 the luxuriant vegetation on their route ; their path is marked by 

 desolation. The moment they arrive at the water the operation 

 of spawning is commenced \by allowing the waves to wash 

 gently over their bodies. A few days of this kind of bathing 

 assists the process of oviposition, and knots of spawn similar 

 to lumps of herring-roe are gradually washed into the water, 

 which in a short time finishes the operation. Countless thou- 

 sands of these eggs are annually devoured by various fishes and 

 monsters of the deep that lie in wait for them during the spawn- 

 ing season. After their brief seaside sojourn, the old crabs 

 undergo their moult, and at this period thousands of them sicken 

 and die, and large numbers of them are captured for table use, 

 soft crabs being highly esteemed by all lovers of good things. 

 By the time they have recovered from their moult the army of 

 juvenUes from the seaside begins to make its appearance in 'order 

 to join the old stock in the mountains ; and thus the legion of 

 land-crabs is annually recruited by a fresh batch, which in their 

 turn perform the annual migration to the sea much as their 

 parents have done before them. 



It is worth noting here that lobsters are year by year 

 becoming " smaller by degrees and beautifully less," all the large 

 ones are being fished up and the small ones are never allowed to 

 become bigger in consequence of the yearly increasing demands 

 of the public. As a general rule, the great bulk of lobsters are 

 not much more than half the size they used to be. The remedy 

 is a close-time. Yes ; there must be a close-time instituted for 

 the lobster and the crab as well. 



Before leaving the crabs and lobsters, it is worthy of remark 

 that an experienced dealer can tell at once the locality whence 

 any particular lobster is obtained — whether from the west of 

 Ireland, the Orkney Islands, or the coast of Brittany. The 

 shelly inhabitants of difi'erent localities are distinctly marked. 

 Indeed fish are peculiarly local in their habits, although the 

 vulgar idea has hitherto been that aU kinds of sea animals herd 

 indiscriminately together ; that the crab and the lobster crept 

 about the bottom rocks, whilst the waving skate or the swaggering 



