INTRODUCTION. 
3 
Porcellio , — are greedily eaten by our poultry and by many of 
the smaller birds, who find these exquisite titbits creeping 
among stones, or at the roots of trees. We must look, too, 
at the members of this class in another point of view ; they 
are pre-eminently the scavengers of the sea, removing and 
assimilating many an object which would otherwise prove a 
nuisance. On this part of the subject we may quote the 
words of one who has long studied the subject both on our 
own coasts and on the shores of foreign lands. Mr. Gosse 
remarks : — - 
“The Crabs are the scavengers of the sea; like the wolves 
and hysenas of the land, they devour indiscriminately dead 
and living prey. The bodies of all sorts of dead creatures 
are removed by the obscene appetite of these greedy Crus- 
tacea ; and there is no doubt that many an enormous Crab, 
whose sapidity elicits praise at the epicure's table, has rioted 
on the decaying body of some unfortunate mariner. But 
what of that ? Let us imitate the philosophy of the negro 
mentioned by Captain Crow. On the Guinea Coast, people 
are buried beneath their own huts, and the Land-crabs are 
seen crawling in and out of holes in the floor with revolting fa- 
miliarity : notwithstanding which, they are caught and eaten 
with avidity. A negro, with whom the worthy Captain re- 
