CHAPTER XVII. 
CRUSTACEANS. 
‘ Multa tamen tetus tristia pontus liabet."' 
Ovid. 
Passing over the vast numbers of beings which inhabit the debatable 
land — the Annelids, which were for ages confounded with the worms, 
because of their resemblance in form — a form which might be declared 
forbidding, but, as Aristotle has well said, Nature, in her domain, 
Wows nothing low, nothing contemptible ; the sea-leeches, whose condi- 
tion was an impenetrable mystery to Pliny, “ Omnia incerta ratione, et 
!n naturae majestate abdita f and the singular cirripedes, one species 
°f which, the barnacle (Anatifa Isms), was thought by old Gerard, 
tile herbalist, and in his day by many others, to be the egg from 
"foicfr the barnacle goose was produced — passing over these ocean 
tribes, we reach the Crustaceans— the Insects of the Sea ; hut insects 
ot greater size, force, and voracity than any land insect with which 
' Ve are acquainted. Armed, also, at all points; for, in place of the 
( otiaceous tunic, they arc clothed in calcareous armour, both hard and 
s trong, and bristling with coarse hairs, spiny tubercles — even armed 
s Pmes. Stone is here substituted for a horny substance ; the structure 
s in many respects the same, but the Creator has changed the 
Materials. 
The Crustaceans have nearly all of them claws, formidably hooked 
^nd toothed, which they employ as pincers both in offensive and 
defensive war. They have been compared to the heavily-armed 
flights of the middle ages— at once audacious and cruel ; barbed in 
steel from head to foot, with visor and corslet, arm-pieces and thigh- 
pieces — nothing is wanting to realise its prototype. 
These marine marauders live on the sea-coast, among the rocks, 
