THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
143 
The dredgings of Messrs. Couch, M‘ An- 
drew, the Thompsons, Gosse, Spence 
Bate and others, and the communications 
of Baird, Rupert Jones, Goodsir, Norman 
and Jukes have afforded abundant mate- 
rials for advancing our knowledge of 
these animals, and of these our author 
has been fortunately enabled to avail 
himself to a very considerable extent. 
We could have wished that the popular 
introductory matter had been somewhat 
more extended, as it only occupies about 
a dozen pages, and we fear that the 
technical portion of the work containing 
the classification of these animals will 
disappoint those who look for familiar 
treatment of a branch of the subject which 
is in itself necessarily dry. 
Of the Natural History and econo- 
mical details given by Mr. White, we 
may select the following passages: — 
“ A London fishmonger told the writer 
that some of the largest shell-fish dealers 
in the metropolis sold every year as many 
as sixty thousand lobsters and twelve 
thousand crabs. He assured him that an 
ordinary fishmonger in London found 
sale for some eight or ten thousand of 
these Crustacean commodities. But who 
can calculate the number of shrimps and 
prawns consumed annually in London 
by those who are fond of such dainties? 
Bushels of the former are daily sold in 
Billingsgate to be retailed by the pint, 
there being from one hundred to one 
hundred and fifty shrimps in every pint; 
while hundreds of pounds weight of 
prawns meet with purchasers, who find 
two hundred prawns in every pound, and 
retail them by the dozen. These are the 
chief Crustacea eaten in London, exclu- 
sive of thousands of the shore crab, which 
may be seen, by the side of whelks and 
periwinkles, on stalls in the poorer 
neighbourhoods, where they find ready 
purchasers in many a ragged gourmand. 
The great craw-fish, or thorny lobster, 
and a limited number of the small fresh- 
water crayfish,— in all, some eight or ten 
species of Crustacea, — exhaust the list of 
the members of this class of animals sold 
as food in our metropolis. 
“ Although Crustacea directly do not 
greatly add to our supplies of food, yet 
they indirectly assist very materially in 
contributing to our wants. The great 
mass of fish derive their principal food 
from the smaller members of this class, 
which swarm in our seas by myriads; 
and in this way Crustacea contribute 
greatly to our comfort. They are the 
nutritious food not only of vast shoals of 
fish, but of swarms of sea-birds, some of 
which feed almost exclusively on them, 
particularly in the arctic parts of the 
ocean. Crustacea also form the bulk of 
the food which supports the vast bodies 
of the whale tribes. The small terres- 
trial species — such, for instance, as the 
little hog-lice of the genera Oniscus and 
Porcellus — are greedily eaten by our 
poultry and by many of the smaller birds, 
who find these exquisite tit-bits creeping 
among stones or at the roots of trees.” 
The following account of the mode of 
catching crabs used by the Arran fisher- 
men will be new to most of our readers, 
whilst the moral which Mr. Wilson (from 
whose ‘ Voyage round the Coasts of Scot- 
land’ the passage is copied) has tagged 
to the end of it affords an excellent piece 
of advice : — 
“ We happened to be astir in a small 
boat on Brodeck Bay, about three o’clock 
one beautiful summer morning. We 
soon perceived two men in a small craft, 
who seemed quite unconscious that 
‘ The flaming chariot of the world’s great eye ' 
was now almost upon them. Their little 
boat hung motionless on the then wave- 
less mirror of the bay, in about ten feet 
depth of water; and after, for a minute 
or thereby, holding their faces close upon 
the surface, they seemed suddenly to pull 
