345 
THE LOBSTEE. 
By ST. GEOEGE MIVAET, E.L.S. 
Lecttjrer on Compaeatiye Anatomy in St. !Maey’s Hospital. 
/^MNE ignotum 'pro magnifico is not more generally true 
than the converse : the readiest sources of information are 
too apt to be neglected — one of the best examples* of the 
important facts of animal organisation is constantly regarded 
from a gastronomic point of view only, while the food it offers 
to the mind is disregarded. This is the more to be regretted 
as the material and mental repasts can be simultaneously 
partaken of. 
The first glance at the animal shows us a six-jointed tail, in 
front of which is a large solid mass (the cephalo-thorax, or head 
and fore-part of body), terminating, anteriorly, in a pointed pro- 
cess the (rostrum). On the under surface of the body we find 
a quantity of moveable appendages, legs, claws, jaws, and feelers, 
beneath the cephalo-thorax, and flat processes (swimmerets) 
beneath the so-called tail, which, however, is really not a tail at 
all, but is the abdomen or belly. The only representative of a 
tail is a median process (the telson) attached to the middle of 
the last joint, and terminating the whole body behind. 
The Lobster, as we know, is encased- in a hard structure — the 
shell ; its legs, &c. (like our own), are all moved by muscles, 
but these, instead of winding round hard parts (as our muscles 
wind round our bones), are encased within the solid structures. 
This shell is not composed of the same material as our own 
bones, nor is it horny, but it is formed of a nitrogenous 
substance, insoluble in alkalies, termed chitin, arranged in 
layers, between which salts of lime (mainly the carbonate) are 
deposited. In position the shell answers to our epidermis 
(or outer skin), and not to the scales of fishes, which latter 
* Professor Huxley, in his lectures at the School of Mines, Jermyn Street, 
selects the Lohster as his type of the annulose division of the animal king- 
dom. The present writer wishes m limine to express his obligations to the 
Professor not only for many of the facts here stated, hut in great part for 
the mode of presenting them also. 
VOL. VII. — NO. XXIX. 
B B 
