the cattle down to the pond to drink as
usual; not one of 'em would touch the water,
not with their hoofs even, but lowed and
turned away their heads, and come right back;
and the next day the pond come over all
green — thick and matted — and so it is to this
hour. That's all I know; but it's getting an
old story now, and people don't take so much
notice of it as they did. However, sir, you
may believe that I haven't told you a word
but what's been told to me for true."

CRABS.

DISCUSSED as a dainty, except in the West
Indies, crabs do not hold the first place
among the crustaceans, though, even in
Europe, they have properties which, rightly
handled, are well worthy of gastronomic
attention. But betore I consider them in
that light — that is to say, before I sup—
I wish to speak of their moral and personal
attributes; which, to my thinking, are far
more interesting than those of lobsters.

The Macrourian, as I have shown,* is, in a
psychological point of view, noticeable chiefly
for his very spiteful temper and his exceedingly
quarrelsome disposition. If
inter-marriages ever take place between the
different branches of the crustacean family, I
pity the creature that finds a husband, or a
wife, in a lobster; a worse neighbour it is
not possible for any shellfish to meet with.

* See p. 567 of the ninth volume of Household
Words, article Lobsters.

Now the crab, take him for all in all, is by
no means a bad sort of fellow, though he has
his peculiarities. To a certain extent, he also
is pugnacious; but, unlike the lobster, his
pugnacity is not wholesale and indiscriminate.
When a crab fights, it is always on a
personal question: to resent an insult or to
defend himself from assault. " The
Börskrabbe " (purse-crab), says Rumphius, " is a
native of Amboyna, where it lives in the
fissures of the rocks by day, and seeks its
food by night on the beach. When met in
the road, he sets himself up in a threatening
attitude, and then retreats backwards, making
a great snapping with his pincers." Rochefort
says the same of the crabs in the West
Indies: " When you try to catch them, they
retreat sideways, show their teeth, and
display their open pincers, striking them against
each other." This is not the portraiture of
a crab seeking a quarrel. It exhibits, on the
contrary, a character in which caution and
courage are combined: if you thrust a quarrel
upon him he will do his devoir crabfully;
and, when he falls, it will be like a warrior,
"with his back to the field and his feet to
the foe." Perhaps you will tell me he is a
duellist, and quote Aristotle and Pliny to
prove it. I know that both these naturalists
assert that crabs are in the habit of fighting
like rams. Aristotle says so in the eighth
book of his History of Animals (and Pliny
repeats the observation): " They will fight
with one another, and then yee shall see
them jurre and butt with their horns like
rammes." But it must be borne in mind
that the mere fact of being engaged in a fair
stand-up fight is no proof of a quarrelsome
disposition. Who can tell what may have
been the amount of provocation that had led
to this hostile demonstration? There may
have been a lady in the case; which, considering
that crabs are arrayed, like knights-
errant, always in full panoply, is not by any
means improbable. There is abundant
evidence that the crab is benevolent, patient,
long-suffering. Its powers of endurance are
prodigious. Sir Charles Lyell tells us, in his
Principles of Geology, that, in the year
eighteen hundred and thirty-two, a large
female crab (cancer pagurus) was captured
on the English coast covered with oysters, and
smaller sea parasites; some of six years'
growth. Two were four inches long and
three inches and a half broad. Mr. Robert
Brown saw the animal alive, in excellent
health and spirits; and Mr. Broderip, who so
usefully combines the naturalist with the police
magistrate, possesses it dead. He has decided
that this patient pagurus could not have cast
its shell during the period of the venerable
oyster's residence upon it; but must have
retained it for six years, instead of moulting
it annually, which is, according to some
authorities, the habit of the species. The
fable of the old man of the mountain becomes
tame and pointless after this reality. The
wise shellfish cheerfully endured what
j could not be cured with a resignation and
fortitude worthy of a crab of old Sparta.
Indeed, wisdom, foresight, and cunning
are characteristics of the species; and in
them it places more dependence than in
physical force. That very Börs-krabbe which
we have already mentioned offers a proof
of this. Hear Rumphius again: " The
natives of Amboyna relate that they [the
crabs] climb the cocoa-nut trees to get at
the milk which is in the fruit; " hence,
he says, " the common name they bear is that
of the crab of the cocoa-nut." Pontoppidan,
the learned Bishop of Bergen, also asserts
that the crabs in Norway " have an artifice
in throwing a stone between the shells of the
oyster when open, so that it cannot shut, and
by that means seizing it as a prey." Acts
like these denote a subtle intellect; indeed,
the crab's career affords strong evidence of
his being generally under the influence of an
arrière pensée.

Take the hermit crab (pagurus niger) as
an example. Pliny says — I quote the
delightfully quaint translation of Philemon
Holland, which may be found in the British
Museum, with Shakspeare's autograph in it,
"William Shakspeare his Booke " (folio,
London, 1601) — "The least of these crabs is
called pinnoteres, and for his smallnesse