"When near the coast," says the author of the "History of British

Fishes," "the assemblage of pilchards assumes the arrangement of a mighty

army, with its wings stretching parallel to the land, and the whole is

composed of numberless smaller bodies, which are perpetually joining

together, shifting their position, and separating again. There are three

stations occupied by this great body, that have their separate influence

on the success of the fishery. One is to the eastward of the Lizard, the

most eastern extremity, reaching to the Bay of Bigbury in Devonshire,

beyond which no fishing is carried on, except that it occasionally

extends to Dartmouth; a second station is included between the Lizard and

Land's End; and the third is on the north coast of the county, the chief

station being about St. Ives. The subordinate motions of the shoals are

much regulated by the tide, against the current of which they are rarely

known to go, and the whole will sometimes remain parallel to the coast

for several weeks, at the distance of a few leagues; and then, as if by

general consent, they will advance close to the shore, sometimes without

being discovered till they have reached it. This usually happens when the

tides are strongest, and is the period when the principal opportunity

is afforded for the prosecution of the sean-fishery." The quantity of

pilchards taken is sometimes incredibly large. In 1847, a very productive

year, 40,000 hogsheads were cured in Cornwall alone, representing

probably, after all deductions, a net value to the takers of £80,000. The

Sardine (_Clupea sardina_), a fish closely allied to the Pilchard though

smaller, is considered as the most savoury of all the herring tribe. It

is chiefly found in the Mediterranean, on the coasts of South France and

Africa, and about the islands of Corsica and Sardinia, where it plays a

no less important part than the Pilchard on the coasts of Cornwall and

Devonshire.

Though a much less valuable fish than its larger-sized relatives, the

diminutive Sprat is not to be despised. Coming into the market in immense

quantities, and at a very moderate price, immediately after the herring

season is over, it affords during all the winter months a cheap and

agreeable food. Like all other species of the herring tribe, the sprats

are capricious wanderers, and make their appearance in exceedingly

variable numbers. The coasts of Kent, Essex, and Suffolk, are the most

productive. So great is the supply thence obtained, that notwithstanding

the immense quantity consumed by the vast population of London and its

neighbourhood, there is yet occasionally a surplus to be disposed of at

so low a price, as to induce the farmers, even so near the metropolis as

Dartford, to use them for manure.

[Illustration: Anchovy.]

The Mediterranean seems to be the peculiar birthplace of the Anchovy

(_Engraulis encrasicholus_), where it appears in the spawning season in

countless multitudes along the shallow coasts. It is about four inches

long, of a bluish-brown colour on the back, and silvery-white on the

belly. It is covered with large thin and easily deciduous scales, and

may be readily distinguished from the Sprat and other kindred species

by the anal fins being remarkably short. It is mostly caught in the

neighbourhood of Antibes, Frejus, and St. Tropez, and sent pickled

in enormous quantities to the fair of Beaucaire, from whence it is

transported in small tin boxes to all parts of the world.

[Illustration: Haddock.]

[Illustration: Ling.]

[Illustration: Cod.]

The Cod-family, to which among others, the Dorse, the Haddock, the

Whiting, the Hake, the Ling, and other valuable fishes belong, ranks next

to that of the herrings in importance to man. In the seas with which

Europeans are best acquainted the common Cod, the chief representative

of the tribe, is found universally, from Iceland to very nearly as far

south as Gibraltar, but appears most abundantly on the eastern side of

the American continent, and among its numerous islands, from 40° up to

66° N. lat., where it may be said to hold dominion from the outer edge

of the great banks of Newfoundland, which are more than three hundred

miles from land, to the verge of every creek and cove of the bounding

coast. To support such a mass of living beings, the ocean sends forth

its periodical masses of other living beings. At one season the cod is

accompanied by countless myriads of the Capelin (_Salmo arcticus_),

and at another by equal hosts of a molluscous animal, the Cuttle-fish

(_Sepia loligo_), called in Newfoundland the squid. The three animals are

migratory, and man, who stations himself on the shore for their combined

destruction, conducts his movements according to their migrations,

capturing millions upon millions of capelins and squids, to serve as

a bait for the capture of millions of cods. In the United Kingdom

alone this fish, in the catching, the curing, the partial consumption,

and sale, supplies employment, food, and profit to thousands of the

human race; but the banks of Newfoundland are the chief scene of its

destruction. As soon as spring appears, England sends forth 2000 ships,

with 30,000 men, across the Atlantic, towards those teeming shallows;

France about one-half the number; and the Americans as many as both

together. On an average, each ship is reckoned to catch about 40,000

fishes; and we may form some idea of the voracity, as well as of the

numbers of the cod, when we hear that in the course of a single day a

good fisherman is able to haul up four hundred one after another with his

line--no easy task considering the size of the fish, which often attains

a length of from two to three feet and a weight of from twenty to forty

pounds.

The captured fish have but little time left them to bewail their lot,

for a few thousands will be "dressed down"--that is, gutted, boned and

salted--in the course of two or three hours. For this purpose the crew

divide themselves into throaters, headers, splitters, salters, and

packers. First the throater passes his sharp knife across the throat of

the unfortunate cod to the bone and rips open the bowels. He then passes

it quickly to the header, who with a strong sudden wrench pulls off the

head and tears out the entrails, which he casts overboard, passing at

the same time the fish instantly to the splitter, who with one cut lays

it open from head to tail, and almost in the twinkling of an eye with

another cut takes out the backbone. After separating the sounds, which

are placed with the tongues, and packed in barrels as a great delicacy,

the backbone follows the entrails overboard, while the fish at the same

moment is passed with the other hand to the salter. Such is the amazing

quickness of the operations of heading and splitting that a good workman

will often decapitate and take out the entrails and backbone of six fish

in a minute. Every fisherman is supposed to know something of each of

these operations, and no rivals at cricket ever entered with more ardour

into their work than do some athletic champions for the palm of "dressing

down" after a "day's catch."

Besides its excellent firm flesh, the liver-oil of the cod is used as a

valuable medicine, and serves to restore many a scrofulous or rickety

child to health. The sound-bladder is also employed by the Icelanders for

the manufacture of fish-lime or isinglass. The best quality of the latter

article, however, is afforded by a species of Sturgeon (_Accipenser

Huso_) which is chiefly found in the Black and Caspian seas, and ascends

the tributary rivers in immense numbers.

The Common Sturgeon (_Accipenser sturio_), though principally frequenting

the seas and rivers of North-Eastern Europe, where, especially in the

Volga, extensive fisheries are established for its destruction, is also

captured on the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, as examples are by

no means uncommon in the fish-mongers' shops of our great cities, a few

coming into the hands of the principal dealers every season. Yarrell

mentions one caught in a stake-net near Findhorn, in Scotland, in July

1833, which measured eight feet six inches in length and weighed two

hundred and three pounds; but in the Baltic specimens of a length of

eighteen feet and weighing a thousand pounds have occasionally been

captured. The body is long and slender from the shoulders backward,

somewhat pentagonal in shape, with five longitudinal rows of flattened

plates, with pointed central spines, directed backwards, and the snout

is tapering and beak-shaped, the mouth small and toothless, so that the

sturgeon, though almost equalling the white shark in size, is of a much

more harmless character and formidable only to the crustaceans, small

fish, or soft animals, he meets with at the bottom in deep water, beyond

the ordinary reach of sea-nets. Hence he is rarely caught in the open

sea, but falls an easy prey to the cunning of man when entering the

friths, estuaries, and rivers for the purpose of spawning. The sturgeon

is a highly valuable fish not only for its well-flavoured flesh but

also for its roe, which furnishes the delicate caviar of commerce. The

smallest but most highly esteemed of the sturgeons is the Sterlet of

the Volga, which sometimes fetches such extravagant prices that Prince

Potemkin has been known to pay three hundred roubles for a single tureen

of sterlet-soup.

[Illustration: Common Sturgeon.]

While many of the numerous members of the salmon family confine

themselves to the rivulet or to the lake, others alternate, like the

sturgeons, between the river and the sea. Of these the most remarkable

is the noble fish which has given its name to the whole tribe, and may

justly be considered as its head, not only in point of size but also for

its wide-spread utility to man.

Every spring or summer the salmon leave the ocean to deposit their spawn

in the sweet waters, often at a distance of many hundred miles in the

interior of the Continent, so that the same fish which during part of

the year may be breasting the waves of the North Sea, may at another

be forcing the current of an Alpine stream. Their onward progress is

not easily stopped: they shoot up rapids with the velocity of arrows,

and make wonderful efforts to surmount cascades or weirs by leaping,

frequently clearing an elevation of eight or ten feet. These surprising

bounds appear to be accomplished by a sudden jerk, which is given to its

body by the animal from a bent into a straight position. If they fail

in their attempt, and fall back into the stream, it is only to rest a

short time, and thus recruit their strength for a new effort. The fall of

Kilmaroc, on the Beauly, in Inverness-shire, is one of the spots where

the leaping feats of the salmon can best be witnessed. "The pool below

that fall," says Mr. Mudie, in the _British Naturalist_, "is very large,

and as it is the head of the run in one of the finest salmon rivers in

the north, and only a few miles distant from the sea, it is literally

thronged with salmon, which are continually attempting to pass the fall,

but without success, as the limit of their perpendicular spring does not

appear to exceed twelve or fourteen feet; at least, if they leap higher

than that, they are aimless and exhausted, and the force of the current

dashes them down again before they have recovered their energy. They

often kill themselves by the violence of their exertions to ascend, and

sometimes they fall upon the rocks and are captured. It is indeed said

that one of the wonders which the Frasers of Lovat, who are lords of the

manor, used to show their guests was a voluntarily cooked salmon at the

falls of Kilmaroc. For this purpose a kettle was placed upon the flat

rock on the south side of the fall, close by the edge of the water and

kept full and boiling. There is a considerable extent of the rock where

tents were erected, and the whole was under a canopy of overshadowing

trees. There the company are said to have waited until a salmon fell into

the kettle, and was boiled in their presence. We have seen as many as

eighty taken in a pool lower down the river at one haul of the seine, and

one of the number weighed more than sixty pounds."

As the salmon laboriously ascend the rivers, it may easily be imagined

that the cunning and rapacity of man seeks every opportunity to intercept

their progress. Nets of the most various form and construction are

employed for their capture; numbers are entrapped in enclosed spaces

formed in weirs, into which they enter as they push up the stream, and

are then prevented by a grating of a peculiar contrivance from returning

or getting out; and many are speared, a mode frequently practised at

night-time, when torches are made use of to attract them to the surface,

or to betray them by their silvery reflection to the attentive fisherman.

The ruddy gleam illumining the river banks or sparkling in the agitated

waters, the black sky above, the deep contrasts of light and shade,

attach a romantic interest to this nocturnal sport, which has been both

practised and sung by Walter Scott.

"'Tis blithe along the midnight tide

With stalwart arm the boat to guide,

On high the dazzling blaze to rear

And heedful plunge the barbed spear.

Rock, wood, and scour emerging bright,

Fling on the stream their ruddy light,

And from the bank our band appears

Like Genii armed with fiery spears."

The natural history of the salmon was until lately but very imperfectly

known, as the parr (brandling, samlet) and the grilse, which are now

fully proved to be but intermediate stages of its growth, were supposed

by Yarrell to be distinct fishes. The first person who seems to have

suspected the true nature of the parr was James Hogg, the Ettrick

shepherd, who in his usual eccentric way took some pains to verify his

opinion. As an angler, he had often caught the parr in its transition

state, and had frequently captured smolts (at that time the only

acknowledged youthful salmon) with the scales barely covering the bars

or finger marks of the parr. Wondering at this, he marked a great number

of the lesser fish and offered rewards of whisky (being himself a great

admirer of the genuine mountain-dew) to the peasantry to bring him any

fish that had evidently undergone the change. These crude experiments

of the talented shepherd convinced him that the parr were the young of

the salmon in the first stage, and since then professed naturalists have

fully settled the question by watching the egg into life, and tracing

the growth of the young fish step by step until it ultimately changed

into the kingly salmon.

This ignorance of the true nature of the parr had most disastrous

effects, as it largely contributed to the depopulation of our streams,

for the farmers and cottars who resided near the rivers used not

unfrequently, after filling the frying-pan with parr, to feed their

pigs with them, and myriads were annually killed by juvenile anglers.

This truly deplorable havoc has fortunately been arrested by Act of

Parliament, but the killing of grilse is still, I believe, a fertile

source of destruction,[O] and should undoubtedly be restrained by law,

as the wholesale slaughter of these juvenile fishes is a most lamentable

example of improvident waste.

[Footnote O: In 1862, 8,467 salmon and 25,042 grilse were captured in the

Tweed.]

In former times our rivers abounded with salmon, more than 200,000

having been caught in a single summer in the Tweed alone, and 2,500 at

one haul in the river Thurso; but, besides the causes above mentioned,

over fishing or fishing at an improper season, and probably in many

cases the pollution of the streams with deleterious matter from mines

or manufactories, have considerably reduced their numbers. Fortunately,

public attention has at length been thoroughly aroused to the danger

which menaces our king of fishes; and, what with better laws for his

protection and the successful attempts that have latterly been made in

artificial fish-breeding, we may hope that more prosperous times are in

store for our salmon-fisheries.

[Illustration: Salmo Rossii]

The salmon not only frequents the streams of Northern Europe but ascends

in vast multitudes the giant rivers of Siberia and of North America. It

is fished by the Ostjak and the Tunguse, and speared by the Indian of the

New World. Ross's Arctic salmon, which is of a more slender form than the

common salmon, differently marked and coloured, and with a remarkably

long under jaw, is so extremely abundant in the sea near the mouths of

the rivers of Boothia Felix that 3,378 were obtained at one haul of a

small-sized seine. The rivers of Kamtschatka abound in salmon of various

kinds, so that the stream, swelling as it were with living waves, not

seldom overflows its banks and casts multitudes ashore. Steller affirms

that, in that almost uninhabited peninsula, the bears and dogs and other

animals catch more of these fishes with their mouths and feet than man in

other countries with all his cunning devices of net and angle.

The salmon of Iceland, which formerly remained undisturbed by the

phlegmatic inhabitants, are now caught in large numbers for the British

market. A small river, bearing the significant name of Laxaa or Salmon

river, has been rented for the trifling sum of 100_l._ a year by an

English company which sends every spring its agents to the spot,

well provided with the best fishing apparatus. The captured fish are

immediately boiled and hermetically packed in tin boxes, so that they can

be eaten in London almost as fresh as if they had just been caught. Other

valuable salmon-streams in Iceland and Norway pay us a similar tribute;

and as commerce, aided by the steamboat and the railway, extends her

empire, rivers more and more distant are made to supply the deficiencies

of our native streams. More than 150,000 salmon are annually caught in

Aljaska--not a quarter of a century ago a real "ultima Thule"--and after

having been well pickled and smoked at the various fishing-stations are

chiefly sent from Sitcha to Hamburg.

Nature has denied the salmon to the streams of Australia and New Zealand;

but as the eggs of this fish can be preserved for a very long time, they

have been transported with perfect success to those far-distant colonies.

[Illustration: Tunny.]

If neither the salmon, nor the common herring, nor the cod, dwell in the

Mediterranean, the fishermen of that sea rejoice in the capture of the

Tunny, the chief of the mackerel or scomberoid family. Its usual length

is about two feet, but it sometimes grows to eight or ten; and Pennant

saw one killed in 1769, when he was at Inverary, that weighed 460 pounds.

The flesh is as firm as that of the sturgeon, but of a finer flavour.

"In May and June," says Mr. Yarrell, "the adult fish rove along the coast

of the Mediterranean in large shoals and triangular array. They are

extremely timid, and easily induced to take a new and apparently an open

course, in order to avoid any suspected danger. But the fishermen take

advantage of this peculiarity for their destruction by placing a look-out

or sentinel on some elevated spot, who makes the signal that the shoal

of tunnies is approaching, and points out the direction in which it will

come. Immediately a great number of boats set off, range themselves in a

curved line, and, joining their nets, form an enclosure which alarms the

fish, while the fishermen, drawing closer and closer, and adding fresh

nets, still continue driving the tunnies towards the shore, where they

are ultimately killed with poles.

"But the grandest mode of catching the tunny is by means of the French

_madrague_, or, as the Italians call it, _tonnaro_. Series of long and

deep nets, fixed vertically by corks at their upper edges, and with lead

and stones at the bottom, are kept in a particular position by anchors,

so as to form an enclosure parallel to the coast, sometimes extending an

Italian mile in length; this is divided into several chambers by nets

placed across, leaving narrow openings on the land side. The tunnies

pass between the coast and the tonnaro; when arrived at the end, they

are stopped by one of the cross-nets, which closes the passage against

them, and obliges them to enter the tonnaro by the opening which is left

for them. When once in, they are driven by various means from chamber

to chamber to the last, which is called the chamber of death. Here a

strong net, placed horizontally, that can be raised at pleasure, brings

the tunnies to the surface, and the work of destruction commences.

The tonnaro fishery used to be one of the great amusements of rich

Sicilians, and, at the same time, one of the most considerable sources

of their wealth. When Louis XIII. visited Marseilles, he was invited to

a tunny-fishery, at the principal _madrague_ of Morgiou, and found the

diversion so much to his taste that he often said it was the pleasantest

day he had spent in his whole progress through the south."

[Illustration: Mackerel.]

The elegant shape and beautiful colouring of the common Mackerel are too

well known to require any particular description, and its qualities as

an edible fish have been long duly appreciated. It dies very soon after

it is taken out of the water, exhibits for a short time a phosphoric

light, and partly loses the brilliancy of its hues. Like all other

members of the family, it is extremely voracious, and makes great havoc

among the herring-shoals, although its own length is only from twelve to

sixteen inches. It inhabits the northern Atlantic, and is caught in large

numbers along the British coast, where it is preceded in its annual visit

by the Gar-fish, which for this reason has received also the name of

Mackerel-guide. The older naturalists ascribed to the mackerel the same

distant migrations as to the tunny, but most probably it only retires

during the winter into the deeper waters, at no very great distance

from the shores, where it appears during the summer season in such

incalculable numbers.

[Illustration: Gar-Fish.]

The mackerel is caught with long nets or by hand-lines. It bites greedily

at every bait, but generally such a one is preferred as best represents a

living prey darting through the water--either some silvery scaled fish,

or a piece of metal, or of scarlet cloth. With swelling sails the boat

flies along, and a sharp wind is generally considered so favourable that

it is called a "Mackerel-breeze." The line is short, but made heavy with

lead, and in this manner a couple of men can catch a thousand in one day.

The more rapid the boat the greater the success, for the mackerel rushes

like lightning after the glittering bait, taking it for a flying prey.

The chieftains of the Sandwich Islands used to catch the bonito mackerels

in a similar way, by attaching flying-fish to their hooks, and rapidly

skimming the surface of the waters. Thus everywhere man knows how to turn

to his advantage the peculiar instincts or habits of the animal creation.

[Illustration: Bonito.]

The author of "Wild Sports of the West" has favoured us with an animated

description of mackerel-fishing on the coast of Ireland.

"It was evident that the bay was full of mackerel. In every direction,

and as far as the eye could range, gulls and puffins were collected,

and, to judge by their activity and clamour, there appeared ample

employment for them among the fry beneath. We immediately bore away for

the place where these birds were numerously congregated, and the lines

were scarcely overboard when we found ourselves in the centre of a shoal

of mackerel. For two hours we killed these beautiful fish, as fast as

the baits could be renewed and the lines hauled in; and when we left

off fishing, actually wearied with sport, we found that we had taken

above five hundred, including a number of the coarser species, called

Horse-mackerel. There is not, on sea or river, always excepting angling

for salmon, any sport comparable to this delightful amusement: full of

life and bustle, everything about it is animated and exhilarating; a

brisk breeze and fair sky, the boat in quick and constant motion, all is

calculated to interest and excite. He who has experienced the glorious

sensations of sailing on the Western Ocean, a bright autumnal sky above,

a deep-green lucid swell around, a steady breeze, and as much of it as

the hooker can stand up to, will estimate the exquisite enjoyment our

morning's mackerel-fishing afforded."

Although an occasional visitor of our shores, the Bonito, or

Stripe-bellied Tunny (_Thynnus pelamys_), which is much inferior in

size to the common tunny of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, is a

true ocean-fish, and generally met with at a vast distance from land.

It inhabits the warmer seas, of which it is one of the most active and

voracious denizens. It is well known to all voyagers within the tropics

for the amusement it affords by its accompanying the vessel in its track,

and by its pursuit of the flying-fish. But in its turn the predacious

Bonito is subject to the persecutions of the huge Sperm-whale, who will

often drive whole shoals before him, and crush dozens at a time between

his prodigious jaws.

The Pelamid (_Thynnus sarda_), which abounds in all districts of the

Mediterranean and on both sides of the Atlantic, has but very lately been

discovered in the British waters, a single specimen having been caught

a few years ago at the mouth of the North Esk. It greatly resembles the

species just mentioned in form and mode of life, prowling about the high

seas for cephalopods and flying-fishes, and is very commonly confounded

with the bonito by sailors, who also give both of them the name of

Skip-jacks, expressive of the habit which many of the large Scomberoids

have of skimming the surface of the sea, and springing occasionally into

the air.

[Illustration: Pilot-Fish.--(Naucrates ductor.)]

Another member of the mackerel family, the Pilot-Fish (_Naucrates

ductor_), easily recognised by the three dark-blue bands which surround

its silvery body, will frequently attend a ship during its course at sea

for weeks or even months together, most likely to profit by the offal

thrown overboard. Regardless of the useful precept, "avoid bad company,"

it is frequently found attending the white shark, and owes its name to

its being supposed to act as a trusty guide or friendly monitor to that

voracious monster, sometimes directing it where to find a good meal,

and at others warning it when to avoid a dangerous bait. At all events,

the pilot-fish is well rewarded for his attendance by snatching up the

morsels which are overlooked by his companion, and as he is an excellent

swimmer, and probably keeps a good look-out, has but little reason to

fear being snatched up himself.

"It has been observed," says Yarrell, "that when a shark and his pilot

were following a vessel, if meat was thrown overboard cut into small

pieces, and therefore unworthy the shark's attention, the pilot-fish

showed his true motive of action by deserting both shark and ship to feed

at his leisure on the morsels."

The family of the anguilliform fishes, characterised by their

serpent-like bodies, destitute of ventral fins, and generally covered

by a slippery skin, with, in some of the genera, small scales embedded

therein, likewise comprises a number of highly interesting and useful

species, forming many generic groups.

Its chief representative in our waters is the Common Eel (_Anguilla

vulgaris_), which, though a frequent inhabitant of our lakes, ponds,

and rivers, may also justly be reckoned among the marine fishes; for

the same wonderful instinct which prompts the salmon and the sturgeon

annually to leave the high seas and seek the inland streams for the sake

of perpetuating their race, forces also the eel to migrate, but his

peregrinations are of an opposite character, for here the full-grown

fishes descend the rivers to deposit their spawn in the sea, and the

young, after having been born in the brackish estuaries, ascend the

streams to accomplish their growth in the sweet waters. The mode of

procreation of eels, which for ages had been an enigma, has now at length

been completely elucidated by Professor Rathke, who discovered that the

eggs, which are of microscopic smallness, so as to be undistinguishable

by the naked eye from the fat in which they lie imbedded, are expelled

through an opening hardly large enough to admit the point of a needle.

The energy of the salmon in swimming stream-upwards for hundreds and

hundreds of miles, and bounding over rapids and cataracts, is truly

wonderful, but the instinctive efforts of the little eels or _elvers_ to

surmount obstacles that seem quite out of proportion to their strength

are no less admirable. Mr. Anderson, upwards of a century ago, described

the young eels as ascending the upright posts and gates of the waterworks

at Norwich until they came into the dam above; and Sir Humphry Davy,

who was witness of a vast migration of elvers at Ballyshannon, speaks

of the mouth of the river under the fall as blackened by millions of

little eels. "Thousands," he adds, "died, but their bodies remaining

moist, served as the ladder for others to make their way; and I saw some

ascending even perpendicular stones, making their road through wet moss,

or adhering to some eels that had died in the attempt. Such is the energy

of these little animals that they continue to find their way in immense

numbers to Loch Erne. Even the mighty fall of Schaffhausen (which stops

the salmon) does not prevent them from making their way to the Lake of

Constance, where I have seen many very large eels." After the little eels

have gained the summit of a fall, they rest for a while with their heads

protruded into the stream. They then urge themselves forward, taking

advantage of every projecting stone or slack water, and never get carried

back by the current. Myriads are destroyed on the way by birds or fishes;

but, as usual, their greatest enemy is man, who not only devours whole

cart-loads of little eels not larger than a knitting-needle, frying them

into cakes, which are said to be delicious, though rather queer-looking

from the number of little eyes with which they are bespangled, but after

getting tired of eating them, actually feeds his pigs with them, or even

uses them for manure. A prodigal waste which should be looked after, as

these little eels would soon increase their weight, and consequently

their value a thousand fold. On the Continent many lakes and ponds have

been stocked with elvers, packed in wet grass, and sent by the railroads

or the post far into the interior of the country.

Eels are pre-eminently nocturnal animals. They always congregate at the

darkest parts of the stews in which they are kept, and invariably select

the darkest nights for their autumnal migration to the sea. Owing to

the smallness of their gill aperture, the membranous folds of which,

by closing the orifice when the eel is out of the water, prevents the

desiccation of the branchiæ, they have the power of living a long time

out of the water when the air is humid, and not unfrequently travel

during the night over the moist surface of meadows or gardens in quest of

frogs or other suitable food.

That eels are not devoid of sagacity is proved by many well authenticated

anecdotes. "In Otaheite," says Ellis in his "Polynesian Researches,"

"they are fed till they attain an enormous size. These pets are kept in

large holes two or three feet deep, partially filled with water. On the

sides of these pits they generally remain, excepting when called by the

person who feeds them. I have been several times with the young chief

when he has sat down by the side of the hole, and by giving a shrill sort

of whistle has brought out an enormous eel, which has moved about the

surface of the water and eaten with confidence out of his master's hand."

The eel has many enemies, among others the common heron, who, in spite

of the slippery skin of his victim, knows how to drive his denticulated

middle claw into his body, or to strike him with his pointed bill.

Yarrell relates that a heron had once struck his sharp beak through

the head of an eel, piercing both eyes, and that the eel--no doubt

remembering that one good turn deserves another--had coiled itself so

tightly round the neck of the heron as to stop the bird's respiration:

both were dead.

The London market is principally supplied with eels from Holland,

a country where they abound. According to Mr. Mayhew, about ten

millions of eels, amounting to a weight of 1,500,000 lbs., are

annually sold in Billingsgate market. These figures show us at once

that the multiplication of eels in our sluggish rivers, which only

contain such fish as are comparatively speaking worthless, is a matter

worth consideration, and powerfully pleads for the protection and

transplantation of the elvers wherever they are likely to prosper.

Eels are extremely susceptible of cold; none whatever are found in the

Arctic regions, and at the approach of winter they bury themselves in

the mud, where they remain in a state of torpidity until the genial

warmth of spring recalls them to a more active state of existence.

In this condition they are frequently taken by eel-spears, and in

Somersetshire the people know how to find the holes in the banks of

rivers in which eels are laid up, by the hoar-frost not lying over them

as it does elsewhere, and dig them out in heaps. Though generally only

from two to three feet long, eels sometimes acquire a much larger size.

Specimens six feet long and fifteen pounds in weight are occasionally

captured, and Yarrell saw at Cambridge the preserved skins of two which

weighed together fifty pounds. They were taken on draining a fen-dyke at

Wisbeach. As eels are but slow in growth, these sizes speak for a great

longevity.

[Illustration: Conger Eel.]

The Conger is in its general appearance so nearly allied to the common

eel that it might easily be mistaken for the same species. It, however,

materially differs from it by its darker colour in the upper part, and

its brighter hue beneath, by its dorsal fin beginning near the head, and

by its snout generally projecting beyond the lower jaw.

This marine giant of the eel tribe attains a length of ten feet, and a

weight of 130 pounds, and is well known on all the rocky parts of the

coast of the British Islands, though nowhere more abundant than on the

Cornish coast, where, according to Mr. Couch, it is not uncommon for a

boat with three men to bring on shore from five hundredweight to two

tons. The fishing for congers is always performed at night, and not

unattended with danger, as it is quite a common occurrence for a conger

to attack the fishermen with open jaws, and so great is the strength of

the large specimens that they have occasionally succeeded in pulling the

fisherman quite out of his boat, if by any chance he has fastened the

line to his arm. The congers that keep among rocks hide themselves in

crevices, where they are not unfrequently left by the retiring tide; but

in situations free from rocks, congers hide themselves by burrowing in

the ground, where it is customary on some parts of the coast of France to

employ dogs in their search. In spite of its tough flesh and exceedingly

nauseous smell, the conger was highly esteemed by Greek epicures, and

in England in the time of the Henrys considered an article of food fit

for a king. Thus, the Prince and Poins, according to Falstaff's account,

found amongst other reasons for their companionship this one: that both

of them were fond of conger and fennel sauce. In our times its flesh,

though banished from all aristocratic tables, meets a ready sale at a

low price among the poorer classes. In the Isle of Man the conger may be

said to take the place of the poor man's pig; it is his bacon, which he

would find difficult to save if it were not for these large eels, which

are caught in great abundance, and sold at the rate of 2_d._ or 3_d._ per

lb. The Manx men split the congers, and then salt them and hang them up

to dry on their cottage walls, where they do not exactly contribute to

perfume the gale.

The Murry or Muræna differs from the common eel by the want of pectoral

fins, and its beautifully-marked skin. It is said to live with equal

facility in fresh or salt water, though generally found at sea, and it

is as common in the Pacific as it is in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.

The only specimen on record as a British fish was caught by a fisherman

of Polperro, October 8, 1834; its length was four feet four inches. The

muræna has acquired a kind of historical celebrity from the strange

fondness with which it was cherished by the Romans, who preserved large

quantities of them in their numerous vivaria, as we do the lustrous

gold-fish in the water-basins of our gardens. A certain Cajus Hirrius,

who lived in the time of Julius Cæsar, was the first that introduced

the fashion, which soon became a passion among the wealthy senators and

knights of the imperial city, who used to deck their especial pets with

all kinds of ornaments. The celebrated orator, Hortensius, the rival of

Cicero, had a _piscina_ at Bauli, on the gulf of Baiæ, where he took

great delight in a favourite murry that would come at his call and feed

from his hand. When the creature died, he was unable to stop his tears;

and another celebrated Roman, L. Licinius Crassus, appears to have had

an equally tender heart, for he, too, wept at the death of his fishy

darling. Vedius Pollio, a Roman knight, has even acquired through these

fishes a scandalous renown, by causing now and then a slave that had

been guilty of some slight offence to be cast alive and naked into their

piscina, and amusing himself with the sight of the murrys lacerating and

devouring the body. That this wretch was a friend of the Emperor Augustus

harmonises but badly with the ideas of the urbanity of his court which

we may have formed from the poems of Horace and Virgil. It is but fair,

however, to the character of the emperor to state that he reprobated

Pollio's cruelty, and ordered his fish-pond to be filled up.

[Illustration: Ammodyte, or Launce.]

The Launces are distinguished from the eels by their large gill openings,

and their caudal fin being separated from their dorsal and anal fins. The

common Sand Launce abounds on many parts of our shore. On account of its

silvery brightness it is highly esteemed by the fishermen as bait for

their hooks, and its remarkable habit of burrowing in the sand as the

tide recedes affords easy means of capture. While underground, it most

likely gets hold of many an unfortunate lob-worm, mollusc, or crustacean,

but on emerging from its retreat it is in its turn preyed upon by the

larger fishes. On a calm evening it is an interesting sight to see the

surface of the water broken by the repeated plunges of the voracious

mackerel as they burst upon the launces from beneath. On the sands at

Portobello, near Edinburgh, people of all ages may be seen when the tide

is out diligently searching for the sand launce, and raking them out with

iron hooks. On the south coast of Devonshire, where the sand launces are

extremely plentiful, the fishermen employ a small seine with a fine mesh,

and are frequently so successful that six or seven bushels are taken

at one haul. The usual length of the sand launce is from five to seven

inches. In many localities it is prepared for table, and considered a

great delicacy.

Although the Lamprey essentially differs from the eel in the formation

of its gills, the softness of its cartilaginous skeleton, and its

funnel-shaped mouth provided with sharp teeth, disposed in circles, yet

it resembles it closely in its outward form. Its colour is generally

a dull brownish olive, clouded with yellowish-white variegations; the

fins are tinged with dull orange, and the tail with blue. The Marine

or Sea Lamprey inhabits the ocean, but ascends the rivers in spring.

Though capable of swimming with considerable vigour and rapidity, it

is more commonly seen attached by the mouth to some large stone or

other substance, the body hanging at rest, or obeying the motion of the

current. Its power of adhesion is so great that a weight of more than

twelve pounds may be raised without forcing the fish to quit its hold.

Like the eel, it is remarkably tenacious of life, the head strongly

attaching itself for several hours to a stone, though by far the greater

part of the body be cut away from it. The lamprey is still considered

as a delicacy; every schoolboy knows that King Henry I. died of an

indigestion caused by this favourite dish; and the town of Gloucester

still sends every Christmas a lamprey-pie to Queen Victoria, such as it

was wont to offer to its sovereign in the days of the Plantagenets and

Tudors.

[Illustration: Myxine.]

The Myxine, Glutinous Hag, or Borer, bears a near resemblance to the

lamprey, but stands upon a much inferior degree of organisation, having

no eyes--(the sole example of blindness among fishes), and a still softer

skeleton, so that, when boiled, it almost entirely dissolves into mucus.

In the lamprey and myxine, the branchial cells, which admit water, are

lined by the delicate membrane through which the blood is aërated. In the

former, however, the external apertures of the branchial cells are placed

on the side of the neck; while in the myxine, which feeds on the internal

parts of its prey, and buries its head and part of its body in the

flesh, the openings of the respiratory organs are removed sufficiently

far back to admit of the respiration going on while the animal's head

is so inserted. Thus, even in this lowest and meanest of all vertebrate

animals, we find a remarkable adaptation of its construction to its

wants, and the proof that it has been as well taken care of by its

Creator as the highest organised creatures of its class.

[Illustration: Porcupine-Fish--(Diodon hystrix.)]

[Illustration: Globe-Fish.]

[Illustration: Short Sun-Fish.--(Orthagoriscus Mola.)]

[Illustration: Trunk-Fish.--(Ostracion triqueter.)]

[Illustration: File-Fish.--(Balistes erythropterus.)]

One of the most remarkable orders of fishes is that of the Plectognaths,

which are distinguished by having the superior maxillary bones and

the intermaxillaries soldered together so as to render the upper jaw

immovable, or incapable of projection. Among the Plectognaths, we

find among others the prickly Globe-fishes and sea-porcupines; the

curiously-shaped Sun-fishes, all head and no body; the Ostracions

or Trunk-fishes, clothed like the armadillos in a defensive coat of

mail, leaving only the tail, fins, mouth, and a small portion of the

gill-opening, capable of motion; and the gorgeous Balistæ or File-fishes,

which owe their family-name to the peculiar structure of their first

dorsal fin. The first and strongest spine of this organ is studded up

the front with numerous small projections, which, under the microscope,

look like so many points of enamel or pearl arising from the surface of

the bone and giving it the appearance of a file. The second smaller spine

has in the fore part of its base a projection which, when the spines are

elevated, locks into a corresponding notch in the posterior base of the

first spine, and fixes it like the trigger of a gun-lock; from which the

fish is called in Italy _pesce balestra_, or the cross-bow fish. The

strong spine cannot be forced down till the small one has been first

depressed and the catch disengaged.

The Plectognaths are mostly denizens of the warmer seas, but the

pig-faced trigger-fish of the Mediterranean (_Balistes capriscus_) has

been caught three times in the British waters since 1827, and the short

sun-fish or molebut, though occurring but occasionally, may be said to

have been taken from John o' Groat's to the Land's End. It grows to an

immense size, often attaining the diameter of four feet, sometimes even

double that size, and occasionally weighing from 300 to 500 pounds.

When observed in our seas, the sun-fishes have generally appeared as

though they were dead or dying, floating lazily along on one side and

making little or no attempt to escape. It is to be presumed that in more

congenial waters they evince a greater degree of liveliness.

The order of the Lophobranchii is in many respects too curious and

interesting to be passed over in silence. Here the gills, instead of

being as usual ranged like the teeth of a comb, are clustered into

small filamentous tufts placed by pairs along the branchial arches;

the face projects into a long tubular snout, having the mouth either

at its extremity, as in the Hippocampus and in the Pipe-fishes, or at

its base, as in the Pegasus of the Indian seas; and the body is covered

with shields or small plates, which often give it an angular form,

and encase it as it were in jointed armour. But the most interesting

feature of their economy is the pouches in which the males of the most

characteristic genera carry the eggs until they are hatched. In the

hippocampi this provision for the safety of the future generation, which

strongly reminds one of the kangaroo or the opossum, forms a perfect

sack, opening at its commencement only; in the pipe-fishes it is closed

along its whole length by two soft flaps folding over each other. Another

peculiarity of these interesting little fishes is the independent motion

of their eyes, the one glancing hither and thither while its fellow

remains motionless, or looks in different directions. This phenomenon of

_double_ vision, which was long supposed to be peculiar to the chameleon,

is, however, not confined to this singular reptile or to the hippocampi

and pipe-fishes, but has been found by Mr. Gosse to exist likewise in

the Little Weever (_Trachinus vipera_), in the Suckers (_Lepidogastri_),

a small family remarkable for the power they possess of attaching

themselves to stones or rocks by means of an adhesive disk on the under

surface of their bodies, and in several other fishes.

When imprisoned in an aquarium, few subjects of the deep display more

intelligence or afford more entertainment than the little _Hippocampus

brevirostris_, or Sea-Horse.

[Illustration: Sea-Horse.]

"While swimming about," says Mr. Lukis,[P] "it maintains a vertical

position, but the tail, ready to grasp whatever meets it in the water,

quickly entwines itself in any direction round the weeds, and, when

fixed, the animal intently watches the surrounding objects, and darts

at its prey with great dexterity. When two of them approach each other,

they often twist their tails together, and struggle to separate or attach

themselves to the weeds; this is done by the under part of their cheeks

or chin, which is also used for raising the body when a new spot is

wanted for the tail to fasten upon afresh."

[Footnote P: Yarrell, "British Fishes," 3rd edition, vol. ii. p. 396.]

"In captivity," says Mr. Gosse, "the manners of the Worm Pipe-Fish

(_Syngnathus lambriciformis_), the smallest of our native species, are

amusing and engaging. Its beautiful eyes move independently of each

other, like those of the chameleon, and another point of resemblance to

that animal our little pipe-fish presents in the prehensile character of

its tail. It curves just the tip of this organ laterally round the stem

or frond of some sea-weed and holds on by this half-inch or so, while

the rest of its body roves to and fro, elevating and depressing the head

and fore parts, and throwing the body into the most graceful curves. All

the motions of the Pipe-fish manifest much intelligence. It is a timid

little thing, retiring from the side of the glass at which it had been

lying when one approaches, and hiding under the shadow of the sea-weeds,

which I have put in, both to afford it shelter, and also to supply food

in the numerous animalcules that inhabit these marine plants. Then it

cautiously glides among their bushy fronds, and from under their shelter

peeps with its brilliant eyes at the intruder as if wondering what he

can be, drawing back gently at any alarming motion. In swimming, it is

constantly throwing its body into elegant contortions and undulations;

often it hangs nearly perpendicular with the tail near the surface; now

and then it butts against the side of the vessel with reiterated blows of

its nose, as if it could not make out why it should not go forward where

it can see no impediment. Now it twists about as if it would tie its body

into a love knot, then hangs motionless in some one of the 'lines of

beauty' in which it has accidentally paused."

The family of the Pleuronectidæ or Flat-fishes recommends itself to our

notice as much by the singularity of its form as by its usefulness to

man. "The want of symmetry," says Yarrell, "so unusual in vertebrated

animals, is the most striking and distinctive character of these fishes:

the twisted head with both eyes on the same side, one higher than the

other, not in the same vertical line, and often unequal in size; the

mouth cleft awry, and the frequent want of uniformity in those fins that

are in pairs, the pectoral and ventral fins of the under side being

generally smaller; and the whole of the colour of the fish confined

to one side, while the other side remains white, produce a grotesque

appearance: yet a little consideration will prove that these various and

seemingly obvious anomalies are perfectly in harmony with that station in

nature which an animal possessing such conformation is appointed to fill.

"As birds are seen to occupy very different situations, some obtaining

their food on the ground, others on trees, and not a few at various

degrees of elevation in the air, so are fishes destined to reside in

different depths of water. The flat-fishes and the various species of

skate are, by their depressed form of body, admirably adapted to inhabit

the lowest position, where they occupy the least space among their

kindred fishes."

"Preferring sandy or muddy shores, the place of the flat-fish is close

to the ground; where, hiding their bodies horizontally in the loose soil

at the bottom, with the head only slightly elevated, an eye on the under

side of the head would be useless; but as both eyes are placed on the

upper surface, an extensive range of view is afforded in those various

directions in which they may either endeavour to find suitable food or

avoid dangerous enemies. Light, one great cause of colour, strikes on the

upper surface only; the under surface, like that of most other fishes,

remains perfectly colourless. Having little or no means of defence,

had their colour been placed only above the lateral line on each side,

in whatever position they moved their piebald appearance would have

rendered them conspicuous objects to all their enemies. When near the

ground, they swim slowly, maintaining their horizontal position; and the

smaller pectoral and ventral fins, on the under side, are advantageous

where there is so much less room for their action than with the larger

fins that are above. When suddenly disturbed, they sometimes make a rapid

shoot, changing their position from horizontal to vertical; and, if the

observer happens to be opposite the white side, they may be seen to pass

with the rapidity and flash of a meteor. Soon, however, they sink down

again, resuming their previous motionless horizontal position, and are

then distinguished with difficulty, owing to their great similarity in

colour to the surface on which they rest."

The number of species of the flat-fishes diminishes as the degrees of

northern latitude increase. In this country we have twenty-three species;

at the parallel of Jutland there are thirteen; on the coast of Norway

they are reduced to ten; in Iceland the number is but five, and in

Greenland only three.

[Illustration: Halibut.]

Many of them attain a considerable size, particularly the Halibut

(_Pleuronectes hippoglossus_). In April 1828 a specimen seven feet six

inches long and three feet six inches broad was taken off the Isle of

Man, and sent to Edinburgh market. Olafsen mentions that he saw one which

measured five ells; and we are told by the Norwegian fishermen that a

single halibut will sometimes cover a whole skiff. Let us, however,

remember that these stories proceed from the country where monstrous

krakens and sea-snakes are most frequently seen, and where the mists of

the north seem to produce strange delusions of vision. At all events, the

halibut is better entitled to the name of _maximus_ than its relation the

Turbot, to which that epithet has been improperly applied by naturalists.

The turbot, equally esteemed by the ancients and the moderns for the

delicacy of its flesh, is often confounded in our markets with the

halibut, but may be easily recognised by the large unequal and obtuse

tubercles on its upper part.

[Illustration: Turbot.]

The number of turbot brought to Billingsgate within twelve months, up to

a recent period, was 87,958. Though very considerable quantities of this

fish are now taken on various parts of our own coasts, from the Orkneys

to the Land's End, yet a preference is given to those caught by the Dutch

fishermen, who are supposed to draw not less than 80,000_l._ for the

supply of the London market alone. According to Mr. Low, it is rare along

our most northern shores, but increases in numbers on proceeding to the

south.

[Illustration: Sole.]

Next to the turbot, the Sole is reckoned the most delicate of the

flat-fishes. It inhabits the sandy shore all round our coast, where it

keeps close to the bottom, indiscriminately feeding on smaller testaceous

animals, crustacea, annelides, radiata, and the spawn and fry of other

fishes. It is found northward as far as the Baltic and the seas of

Scandinavia, and southward along the shores of Spain, Portugal, and the

Mediterranean. The consumption is enormous, for Mr. Bertram informs us

that no less than 100,000,000 soles are annually brought to the London

market.[Q] They seldom take any bait, and are caught almost entirely by

trawling. The principal fishing-ground in England is along the south

coast from Sussex to Devonshire, where the soles are much larger and

considered otherwise superior to those of the north and east. On the

Devonshire coast, the great fishing-station is at Brixham in Torbay,

where the boats, using large trawling nets from thirty to thirty-six feet

in beam, produce a continual supply.

[Footnote Q: We are told by the same author ("Harvest of the Seas,"

Murray, 1866) that 500,000 cod-fish, 25,000,000 mackerel, 35,000,000

plaice, and 200,000,000 haddocks, &c., form the yearly supply of the

metropolis, which, besides this immense number of white-fish, consumes

50,000,000 red herrings and 1,600,000 dried cod. These, with the addition

of Molluscous shell-fish (oysters, &c.) to the amount of 920,000,000,

and a daily demand for 10,000 lobsters during the season, afford an

instructive indication of what must be the requirement of the whole

population of the United Kingdom as regards fish food.

The Report of the Commissioners appointed in the year 1863 to enquire

into the sea-fisheries of the United Kingdom gives us the gratifying

intelligence that the number of fishermen in Great Britain has nearly

doubled within the last twenty years, while the boats are increasing

in number and size. No class of the population is said to be in a more

flourishing condition; and this prosperity is no doubt mainly due to

the railroads, which have opened throughout the whole kingdom a ready

market for the produce of the seas. In Ireland, however, there has been

a diminution of 10,583 boats and 52,127 men within the same time; a

consequence of the famine of 1848, and subsequent emigration.]

[Illustration: Plaice.]

The Plaice and Flounder, though far inferior to the sole in quality, are

still in great request as articles of food. On the English coast, the

plaice are obtained in abundance on all sandy banks and muddy grounds,

wherever either lines or trawl-nets can be used. On the sandy flats of

the Solway Frith, they are taken by the fishermen and their families

wading in the shoal water with bare feet. When a fish is felt, it is

pressed by the foot firmly against the bottom until it can be secured by

the hand and transferred to the basket. Long practice gives the dexterity

which renders this kind of fishing successful.

In some parts of the North of Europe, where from the rocky nature of

the soil the sea is remarkably transparent, plaice and some other

flat-fish of large size are taken by dropping down upon them from a boat

a doubly-barbed short spear, heavily leaded, to carry it with velocity

to the bottom, with a line attached to it, by which the fish, when

transfixed, is hauled up.

[Illustration: The Flounder.]

The Flounder, one of the most common of the flat-fish, is found in

the sea and near the mouths of large streams all round our coast,

particularly where the bottom is soft, whether of sand, clay, or mud. It

also ascends the rivers, and is caught in considerable quantities from

Deptford to Richmond by Thames fishermen, who, with the assistance of an

apprentice, use a net of a particular sort, called a tuck-sean. "One end

of this net," says Yarrell, "is fixed for a short time by an anchor or

grapple, and its situation marked by a floating buoy; the boat is then

rowed or rather sculled by the apprentice in a circle, the fisherman near

the stern handing out and clearing the net: when the circle is completed

and a space enclosed, the net is hauled in near the starting-point in a

direction across the fixed end."

The Sail-fluke, a species of flat-fish common among the Orkneys, where it

is highly prized as an article of food, its flesh being firm and white,

is remarkable for its curious habit of coming ashore spontaneously, with

its tail erected above the water, like a boat under sail, whence it has

derived its name. This it does generally in calm weather, and on sandy

shores, and the country people residing near such places train their dogs

to catch it. In North Ronaldshay, the northernmost island of the group, a

considerable supply is obtained in an original manner: thus described in

a letter from a resident inserted in Yarrell's "British Fishes:" "In the

winter and early spring, a pair of black-headed gulls take possession of

the South Bay, drive away all interlopers, and may be seen at daybreak

every morning, beating from side to side, on the wing, and never both in

one place, except in the act of crossing as they pass. The sail-fluke

skims the ridge of the wave towards the shore with its tail raised over

its back, and when the wave recedes is left on the sand, into which

it burrows so suddenly and completely that, though I have watched its

approach, only once have I succeeded in finding its burrow.

"The gull, however, has a surer eye, and casting like a hawk pounces on

the fluke, from which, by one stroke of its bill, it extracts the liver.

If not disturbed, the gull no sooner gorges the luscious morsel than

it commences dragging the fish to some outlying rock, where he and his

consort may discuss it at leisure. By robbing the black backs, I have

had the house supplied daily with this excellent fish, in weather during

which no fishing-boat could put to sea. Close to the beach of South Bay,

a stone wall has been raised to shelter the crops from the sea-spray.

Behind this we posted a smart lad, who kept his eye on the soaring gulls.

The moment one of the birds made its well-known swoop, the boy rushed to

the sea-strand shouting out with all his might. He was usually in time

to scare the gull away and secure the fluke, but almost in every case

with the liver torn out. If the gull by chance succeeded in carrying his

prey off the rock, he and his partner set up a triumphant cackling, as if

deriding the disappointed lad."

[Illustration: Thornback.]

The Rays resemble the side-swimmers by the flatness of their form, but

differ widely from them in many other particulars. Like the sharks and

sturgeons, they belong to the cartilaginous fishes, and as their branchiæ

adhere to the cells, these respiratory membranes are not furnished with

a gill-cover, but communicate freely with the water by means of five

spiracles on either side. More unsightly fishes can hardly be conceived.

The rhomboidal broad body, the long narrow tail frequently furnished with

two and sometimes three small fins, and mostly armed with one or more

rows of sharp spines along its whole length, the dirty colour, and the

thick coat of slime with which it is covered, render them pre-eminently

disgusting. Their mode of defending themselves is very effectual, and

forms a striking contrast to the helplessness of the flat fish. The point

of the nose and the base of the tail are bent upwards towards each other,

and the upper surface of the body being then concave, the tail is lashed

about in all directions over it, and the rows of sharp spines frequently

inflict severe wounds.

Eleven species of rays are found on the British coasts, some, like the

skates, with a perfectly smooth skin; others, like the thornback, with

an upper surface studded with spines, and some, like the sting-ray,

with a tail still more powerfully armed with a long serrated spine: a

formidable weapon, which the fish strikes with the swiftness of an arrow

into its prey or enemy, when with its winding tail it makes the capture

secure. The lacerations inflicted by the tropical sting-rays produce the

most excruciating tortures. An Indian who accompanied Richard Schomburgk

on his travels through Guiana, being hit by one of these fishes while

fording a river, tottered to the bank, where he fell upon the ground and

rolled about on the sand with compressed lips in an agony of pain. But no

tear started from the eye, no cry of anguish issued from the breast, of

the stoical savage. An Indian boy wounded in the some manner, but less

able to master his emotions, howled fearfully, and flung himself upon the

sand, biting it in the paroxysm of his anguish. Although both had been

hit in the foot, they felt the severest pain in the loins, in the region

of the heart, and in the arm-pits. A robust man, wounded by a sting-ray,

died in Demarara under the most dreadful convulsions.

The rays are very voracious; their food consists of any sort of fish,

mollusc, annelide, or crustacean, that they can catch. So powerful are

their muscles and jaws that they are able to crush the strong shell of a

crab with the greatest ease. Even in our seas they attain a considerable

size. Thomas Willoughby makes mention of a single skate of two hundred

pounds' weight, which was sold in the fish market at Cambridge to the

cook of St. John's College, and was found sufficient for the dinner of

a society, consisting of more than a hundred and twenty persons. Dr. G.

Johnston measured a sharp-nosed ray at Berwick, which was seven feet

nine inches long and eight feet three inches broad. But our European

rays are far from equalling the colossal dimensions of the sea-devil of

the Pacific. This terrific monster swims fast, and often appears on the

surface of the ocean, where its black unwieldy back looks like a huge

stone projecting above the waters. It attains a breadth of twelve or

fifteen feet, and Lesson was presented by a fisherman of Borabora with

a tail five feet long. The Society Islanders catch the hideous animal

with harpoons, and make use of its rough skin as rasps or files in the

manufacture of their wooden utensils.

Creatures so voracious and well armed as the rays would have attained

a dangerous supremacy in the maritime domains had they equalled most

other fishes in fecundity. Fortunately for their neighbours, they seldom

produce more than one young at a time, which, as in the sharks, is

enclosed in a four-cornered capsule ending in slender points, but not, as

in the former, produced into long filaments.

Thus nature has in this case set bounds to the increase of a race which

else might have destroyed the balance of marine existence; in most

fishes, however, she has been obliged to provide against the danger of

extinction by a prodigal abundance of new germs. If the cod did not

annually produce more than nine millions of eggs, and the sturgeon more

than seven; if the flat-fish, mackerels, and herrings, did not multiply

by hundreds of thousands, they could not possibly maintain themselves

against the vast number of their enemies. "Not one egg too much," every

one will say who considers that of all the myriads of germs which are

deposited on the shallow sand-banks and shores to be quickened by the

fructifying warmth of the sun, not one in a hundred comes to life, as

fishes and molluscs, crabs and radiata, devour the spawn with equal

voracity; that a thousand dangers await the young defenceless fry, since

everywhere in the oceanic realms no other right is known than that of

the stronger; and that, finally, the insatiable rapacity of man is

continually extirpating millions on millions of the full-grown fishes.

But if very few of this much-persecuted race die a natural death, a life

of liberty makes them some amends for their violent end. The tortured

cart-horse or the imprisoned nightingale would, if they could reflect,

willingly exchange their hard lot and joyless existence for the free

life of the independent fish, who, from the greater simplicity of his

structure, his want of higher sensibilities, his excellent digestion,

and the more equal temperature of the element in which he lives, remains

unmolested by many of the diseases to which the warm-blooded and

particularly the domestic animals are subject.

[Illustration: Dory.]

CHAP. XIII.

CRUSTACEA.

CRABS--LOBSTERS.

How are they distinguished from the Insects?--Barnacles and

Acorn-shells.--Siphonostomata.--Entomostraca.--King-Crab.

--Edriophthalmia.--Sandhoppers.--Thoracostraca.--Compound

Eye of the higher Crustaceans.--Respiratory Apparatus of the

Decapods.--Digestive Organs.--Chelæ or Pincers.--Distribution

of Crabs.--Land Crabs.--The Calling Crab.--Modifications of the

Legs in different species.--The Pinna and Pinnotheres.--Hermit

Crabs.--The Lobster.--The Cocoa-nut Crab.--The Shrimp.--Moulting

Process.--Metamorphoses of Crabs.--Victims and Enemies of the

Crustaceans.--Their Fecundity.--Marine Spiders and Insects.

[Illustration: Barnacle.]

[Illustration: Balanus ovularis.]

[Illustration: Development of Balanus balanoides.--(Acorn-shell.)

A. Earliest form. B. Larva after second moult. C. Side view of the same.

D. Stage immediately preceding the loss of activity. _a._ Stomach. _b._

Nucleus of future attachment.]

The Crustaceans were included by Linnæus among his insects, but their

internal structure presents such numerous and important differences

that modern naturalists have raised them to the dignity of a separate

class. They have indeed, in common with the insects, an articulated body,

generally cased with hard materials; they are like them provided with

jointed legs, with antennæ or feelers, and their organs of mastication

are similarly formed; but insects breathe atmospheric air through lateral

pores or tracheæ, while the crustaceans, being either aquatic animals

or constantly frequenting very damp places, have a branchial or a

tegumentary respiration. The perfect insect undergoes no further change;

the crustacean, on the contrary, increases in size with every successive

year. The higher crustacean possesses a heart, which propels the blood,

after it has been aërated in the gills, to every part of the body; in the

insect the circulation of the blood is by no means so highly organised.

On the other hand many of the insects are far superior in point of

intelligence to even the best endowed crustaceans, for here we find no

parental care, no mutual affection, no joint labours for the welfare of

a large community, no traces of an amiable disposition, but frequent

outbursts of an irascible and sanguinary temper. Though the whole of the

Crustacea are formed after one and the same general type, and the same

fundamental idea may be traced throughout all their tribes, yet the rings

of which their body is composed, and the limbs or appendages attached to

these segments, undergo such extensive modifications of structure in the

various orders into which the class has been divided that even the eye

of science has with difficulty made out the true nature of many of their

lowest forms. Who, for instance, judging from outward appearances alone,

would suppose that the Barnacles and Acorn-shells which he sees riveted

to the rock or to a piece of floating timber were relations of the crab

or lobster; but a view of their early forms at once points out their real

character, for then they appear as active little animals possessing three

pairs of legs and a pair of compound eyes, and having the body covered

with an expanded shield like that of many of the lower crustaceans.

After going through a series of metamorphoses, these larvæ, tired of a

roaming life, attach themselves by their head, a portion of which becomes

excessively elongated into the "peduncle" of the Barnacles, whilst in

the Balani or acorn-shells it expands into a broad disk of adhesion. The

multivalve shell is gradually formed, the eyes are cast away as being

no longer needed, and the now useless feet are replaced by six pairs of

extremely useful _cirrhi_, long, slender, many-jointed, tendril-like

appendages fringed with delicate filaments and covered with vibratile

cilia. These cirrhi, which resemble a plume of purple feathers, and from

whose peculiar character the name of the group, Cirrhipoda, is derived,

are constantly in motion as long as they are bathed in water, projecting

outwards and expanding into an oval concave net, then retracting inwards,

and closing upon whatever may have come within their reach. They are

so judiciously placed that any small animal which becomes entangled

within them can rarely escape, and is at once conveyed to the mouth. The

currents produced in the water by their perpetual activity serve also to

aërate the blood, so that these delicate organs act both as gills and

as prehensile arms. In spite of their sessile condition, the Cirrhipeds

have not been left without protection against hostile attacks, for at the

approach of danger they shrink within their shell, and close its orifice

against a host of hungry intruders.

Their various families are widely spread over the seas. It is well known

that the barnacles frequently attach themselves in such vast numbers to

ships' bottoms as materially to obstruct their way, and the acorn-shells

often line the coasts for miles and miles with their large white scurfy

patches. The Coronulæ settle so profusely on the skin of the Greenland

whale as often to hide the colour of its skin, while the Tubicinellæ

exclusively occur on the huge cetaceans of the South Sea. Some of the

larger sea-acorns are highly esteemed as articles of food. The Chinese,

after eating the animal of _Balanus tintinnabulum_ with salt and vinegar,

use the shell, which is about two or three inches high and an inch in

diameter, as a lamp, and the flesh of _Balanus psittacus_ on the southern

parts of the South American coast is said to equal in richness and

delicacy that of the crab.

While the Cirrhipeds grasp their prey as in a living net, the

Siphonostomata lead a parasitic life chiefly upon fishes, sucking their

juices with a bloodthirsty proboscis. Some (Argulus, Caligus) wander

about freely on the body of their victims as grazing animals on their

pasture grounds, or even make excursions in the water, where they will

turn over and over several times in succession like mountebanks; others

(Lerneæ), after having, like the barnacles, indulged in a vagabond

existence in their first youth, remain ever after clinging to the spot

on which they originally settled, and where their body undergoes such

remarkable transformations that not a vestige of the crustacean structure

which characterised their erratic life remains.

As we continue to proceed from the lower to the higher forms, we find,

on the next stage of crustacean life, the numerous families of the

Entomostraca; some bristly-footed (Lophyropoda), with a small number

of legs and with respiratory organs attached to the parts in the

neighbourhood of the mouth, others gill-footed (Branchiopoda), with

numerous foliaceous legs, serving both for respiration and swimming. Some

of these creatures, which are generally of such minute size as to be only

just visible to the naked eye, have an unprotected body (Branchipus),

but generally they are enclosed within a horny or shelly casing, which

sometimes closely resembles a bivalve shell in shape and in the mode

of junction of its parts, whilst in other instances it forms a kind of

buckler, an opening being left behind, through which the members project.

[Illustration: King-Crab.]

Though enjoying a royal title, the King-crabs, or Limuli, occupy in

reality but a low rank among the crustaceans, and are hardly superior

in organisation to the Entomostraca. They are of large size, sometimes

attaining the length of two feet, and of a very singular structure, the

bases of the legs performing the part of jaws. The best-known species

comes from the Moluccas, where they are often seen slowly swimming in the

sheltered bays, or still more slowly crawling along upon the sandy shores.

[Illustration: Sandhopper.]

In the Edriophthalmia are included the lower crustaceans that have

no carapace, and whose thorax and abdomen are distinctly composed of

articulated segments. The numerous legs are variously formed in the

different genera for springing, walking, or swimming; and respiration

is executed by certain portions of the extremities, modified for this

purpose in their structure. To this order belong among others the

saltatorial sandhoppers (Talitrus), which so frequently jump up before

our feet when walking on the wet sea-sand; the ill-famed Cheluræ and

Linnoriæ, whose devastations in submerged timber almost rival those of

the ship-worm, and the parasitical Cyami, which gnaw deep holes into the

skin of the whale. The sandhoppers are extremely frequent on the shores

of the arctic seas, where they emulate the tropical ants in their speedy

removal of decaying animal substances. Thus Captain Holböll relates that,

having enclosed a piece of shark's flesh in a basket, and let it down to

a depth of seventy-five fathoms, in the Greenland sea, he by this means

caught within two hours six quarts of these little creatures, while a

vast number still followed the basket as it was hauled up.

[Illustration: Chelura terebrans.]

[Illustration: Limnoria lignorum.]

[Illustration: Square facets of Scyllarus.]

[Illustration: Hexagonal facets of Squilla.]

As the lower crustaceans offer but few points of interest to the general

reader, they required but a few words of notice; but the highest order of

the class, the Thoracostraca, thus named from the carapace which covers

their thorax, so that only the abdomen presents an annular structure,

may justly claim a more ample description. The preceding orders had

either sessile eyes or none at all; here the movable eyes are fixed on

stalks and of a compound structure like those of the insects; each ocular

globe consisting of a number of distinct parallel columns, every one of

which is provided with its own crystalline lens, receives its separate

impression of light, and is thus in itself a perfect eye. Approaches to

this structure are seen in some of the lower crustaceans; but here the

"ocelli," as these minute individual eyes have been designated, are very

numerous. They are at once recognised, under even a low magnifying power,

by the facetted appearance of the surface of the compound eye, the facets

being either square (Scyllari, &c.) or more commonly hexagonal (Paguri,

Squillæ, &c). The auditory apparatus is likewise highly developed; the

sense of smell is known to be very acute; and the antennæ are delicate

organs of touch.

The Thoracostraca are subdivided into the small group of the Stomatopoda,

whose branchiæ are external and the feet prehensile or formed for

swimming, and the far more numerous and important Decapods, which are

either long-tailed like the scyllarus or short-tailed like the crab. In

these the branchiæ no longer float in the water, but are enclosed in two

chambers, situated one at each side of the under surface of the broad

shelly plate which covers the back of the animal. Each of these chambers

is provided with two apertures, one in the front near the jaws, the other

behind.

[Illustration: Scyllarus equinoxialis.]

The disposition of the anterior or efferent orifice varies but little;

but in the long-tailed species the afferent or posterior orifice is a

wide slit at the basis of the feet, while in the short-tailed kinds it

forms a small transverse aperture generally placed almost immediately

in front of the first pair of ambulatory extremities. By means of this

formation, the short-tailed decapods or crabs, like those fishes that

are provided with a narrow opening to their gill covers, are enabled

to exist much longer out of the water than the long-tailed lobsters.

Some of them even spend most of their time on land; and, still better

to adapt them for a terrestrial life, the internal surfaces of the

branchial caverns are lined with a spongy texture, and the gill branches

separated from each other by hard partitions, so as to prevent them from

collapsing after a long penury of water and thus completely stopping the

circulation. While in fishes the water that serves for respiration flows

from the front backwards, so as not to impede their motions, we find

in the interior of the branchial cavity of the decapods a large valve

attached to the second pair of maxillary feet, which, continually falling

and rising, occasions a rapid current from behind forwards in the water

with which the cavity is filled, a structure perfectly harmonising with

their retrograde or sidelong movements.

The digestive apparatus of the decapods is of a very complicated

structure. The mouth is here furnished with at least eight pieces or

pairs of jaws, which pass the food through an extremely short gullet

into a stomach of considerable size. This stomach is rendered curious

by having within certain cartilaginous appendages, to which strong

grinding-teeth are attached. These are placed at the outlet of the

stomach, so that the aliment, after being subjected to the action of

the jaws, is again more perfectly comminuted by the stomach-teeth

before entering the digestive tube. The different pieces composing the

masticatory apparatus of the stomach vary considerably in the different

genera, and even in the several species of the same genus; but in every

case they are always singularly in harmony with the kind of food taken

and the general habits of the animal.

To enable the decapods to seize their victims or to defend themselves

against their enemies, their anterior thoracic extremities generally

assume the form of "chelæ," claws, or pincers of considerable strength,

armed with teeth or sharp hooks, which give them increased powers

of prehension. This form results mainly from the state of extreme

development in which the penultimate articulation frequently occurs,

and its assumption of the shape of a finger by the prolongation of one

of its inferior angles. Against the finger-like process thus produced,

which is of great strength, and quite immovable, the last articulation

can be brought to bear with immense force, as it is put into motion by

a muscular mass of great size, and in relation with the extraordinary

development of the penultimate articulation. In most cases only the

first pair of legs is converted into these formidable weapons, but in

the Dromiæ, which are very common in the warmer seas, we find the two

posterior pairs of legs, which are of a much smaller size, and raised

above the plane of the others, similarly armed. These posterior claws,

however, are not intended for active warfare, but merely for strategical

purposes, as they serve to hold fast the pieces of sponges, shells,

medusæ, and other marine productions, under whose cover the wily robber

approaches and entraps his prey.

[Illustration: Dromia Vulgaris.]

While the lower crustaceans abound in the polar seas, the crabs are

completely wanting in those desolate regions; their number increases

with the warmer temperature of the waters, and attains its maximum in

the tropical zone. Here we find the most remarkable and various forms,

here they attain a size unknown in our seas; and here they do not, as

with us, inhabit solely the salt waters, but also people the brooks

and rivers, or even constantly sojourn on land,--as, for instance, the

_Thelphusæ_ and _Gecarcini_. There are even some species of land-crabs

that suffocate when dipped into water. They breathe indeed through

branchiæ, but the small quantity of oxygen dissolved in water does not

suffice for the wants of their active respiration. They generally live

in the shades of the damp forests, often at a great distance from the

sea, concealing themselves in holes. At breeding time they generally seek

the shore for the purpose of washing off their spawn, and depositing it

in the sand, and no obstruction will then make them deviate from the

straight path. They feed on vegetable substances, and are reckoned very

excellent food. When taken, they will seize the person's finger with

their claw, and endeavour to escape, leaving the claw behind, which for

some time after it has been separated from the body, continues to give

the finger a friendly squeeze. In the dusk of the evening they quit their

holes, and may then be seen running about with great swiftness.

[Illustration: Jamaica Land-Crab.]

All sandy and muddy coasts of the tropical seas, affording sufficient

protection against a heavy sea, swarm with crabs. In the East and West

Indies the Gelasimi bore in every direction circular holes in the moist

black soil of the coast. One of the claws of these remarkable creatures

is much larger than the other, so as sometimes to surpass in size the

whole remainder of the body. They make use of it as a door, to close the

entrance of their dwelling, and when running swiftly along, carry it

upright over the head, so that it seems to beckon like an outstretched

hand. One might fancy the crab moved it as in derision of its pursuers,

telling them by pantomimic signs, "Catch me if you can!"

[Illustration: Large-Clawed Calling-Crab.]

As soon as the ebbing flood lays bare the swampy grounds of the mangrove

woods, myriads of animals are seen wallowing in the pestiferous mud. Here

a fish jumps about, there a holothuria crawls, and crabs run along by

thousands in every direction. The black mud along the coast of Borneo

assumes quite a brilliant blue tinge, when, at low water, during the heat

of the day, the cœrulean Gelasimi come forth to feed.

[Illustration: Calling-Crab of Ceylon.]

The Venetian lagoons also harbour a vast number of the common Shore-Crab

(_Portunus Mænas_), the catching of which affords a profitable employment

to the inhabitants of those swampy regions. Whole cargoes are sent to

Istria, where they are used as bait for anchovies. The fishermen gather

them a short time before they cast their shell, and preserve them in

baskets, until the moulting process has been effected, when they are

reckoned a delicacy even on the best tables. On attempting to seize this

crab, it runs rapidly sideways, and conceals itself in the mud; but when

unsuccessful, it raises itself with a menacing mien, beats its claws

noisily together, as if in defiance of the enemy, and prepares for a

valiant defence, like a true knight.

The most valuable short-tailed crustacean of the North Sea is undoubtedly

the Great Crab (_Cancer pagurus_), which attains a weight of from four to

five pounds, and is consumed by thousands in the summer, when it is in

season and heaviest. It is caught in wicker-baskets, arranged so as to

permit an easy entrance, while egress is not to be thought of.

The legs of the crabs are very differently formed in various species.

In those which have been called sea-spiders they are very long, thin,

and weak, so that the animal swims badly, and is a slow and uncertain

pedestrian. For greater security it therefore generally seeks a greater

depth, where, concealed among the sea-weeds, it wages war with annelides,

planarias, and small mollusks. Sea-spiders are often found on the

oyster-banks, and considered injurious by the fishermen, who unmercifully

destroy them whenever they get hold of them.

In other species the legs are short, muscular, and powerful, so as

rapidly to carry along the comparatively light body. The tropical

land-crabs and the genera _Ocypoda_ and _Grapsus_, which form the link

between the former and the real sea-crabs, are particularly distinguished

in this respect.

The Rider or Racer (_Ocypoda cursor_), who is found on the coasts of

Syria and Barbary, and abounds at Cape de Verde, owes his name to his

swiftness, which is such that even a man on horseback is said not to

be able to overtake him. The West Indian ocypodas dig holes three or

four feet deep, immediately above high-water mark, and leave them after

dusk. Towards the end of October they retire further inland, and bury

themselves for the winter in similar holes, the opening of which they

carefully conceal.

[Illustration: American Sand-Crab.]

In the Portuni, or true Sea-crabs, finally, we find the hind pair of legs

flattened like fins, so that they would cut but a sorry figure on the

land, but are all the better able to row about in their congenial element.

[Illustration: Spotted Fin-Crab.]

A strange peculiarity of many crabs is the quantity of parasites they

carry along with them on their backs. Many marine productions, both

of a vegetable and animal nature, have their birth and grow to beauty

on the shell of the sea-spider. Corallines, sponges, zoophytes, algæ,

may thus be found, and balani occasionally cover the entire upper

surface of the body of the crab. "All the examples of the _Inachus

Dorsettensis_ which I have taken," says the distinguished naturalist,

Mr. W. Thompson of Belfast, "were invested with sponge, which generally

covers over the body, arms, and legs; algæ and zoophytes likewise spring

from it." In this extraneous matter some of the smaller zoophytes find

shelter, and, together with the other objects, render the capture of

the _Inachus Dorsettensis_ interesting far beyond its own acquisition.

In Mr. Hyndman's collection, there is a sea-spider carrying on its back

an oyster much larger than itself, and covered besides with numerous

barnacles. Like Atlas, the poor creature groaned under a world.

The extraneous matters which so many crabs carry along with them are,

however, far from being always a useless burden; they are often a

warlike stratagem, under cover of which the sly crustacean entraps many

a choice morsel. Thus Bennett witnessed at Otaheite the proceedings of

an interesting Hyas species, which disguised itself by investing its

body with a covering of decayed vegetable substances and coral-sand. The

better to ensnare its prey, the back was covered with rigid and incurved

bristles, calculated to retain the extraneous substances, while the short

and well concealed forceps-claws were ready for the attack, and the

ophthalmic peduncles, curving upward to raise the eyes above the pile of

materials, gave the wily crab the great advantage of seeing without being

seen. As soon as an unfortunate mollusk, unsuspicious of evil, approached

the lurking ruffian, he darted upon it like an arrow, and, ere it could

recover its presence of mind, was busy tearing it to pieces.

[Illustration: Pea-Crab.]

If many crabs are burdened with small animals and plants, others live

parasitically in the shells of mollusks. Thus the small _Pinnotheres

veterum_ claims the hospitality of the Pinna, a large bivalve of the

Mediterranean. The ancients supposed that this was a friendly connection,

an _entente cordiale_, formed for mutual defence: that the Pinna,

being destitute of eyes, and thus exposed when he opened his shell to

the attacks of the cuttle-fish and other enemies, was warned of their

approach by his little lodger, upon which he immediately closed his shell

and both were safe. Unfortunately, there is not a word of truth in the

whole story. The sole reason why the Pinnotheres takes up its abode under

a stranger's roof is the softness of its own integuments, which otherwise

would leave it utterly defenceless; nor does the Pinna show the least

sign of affection for its guest, who, on returning from an excursion,

often finds it very difficult to slip again into the shell.

[Illustration: Pinna Augustana.]

According to Mr. Thompson, the _Modiola vulgaris_, a species of mussel

very common on the Irish coast, almost always harbours several parasitic

crabs (_Pinnotheres pisum_). At Heligoland, Dr. Oetker, to whom we are

indebted for the best work on that interesting island, scarce ever found

a modiola without several guests of this description, while he never

could find any in oysters, mussels, and other nearly related species.

What may the reason be of either this predilection or that desertion?

The numerous family of the Paguri, or Hermit crabs, is also condemned

by its formation to lead a parasitic and robber-life. The fore part of

the body is indeed, as in other crabs, armed with claws and covered with

a shield, but ends in a long soft tail provided with one or two small

hooks. How then are the poor creatures to help themselves? The hind part

is not formed for swimming, and its weight prevents them from running.

Thus nothing remains for them but to look about them for some shelter,

and this is afforded them by several conchiform shells, _buccina_,

_neritæ_, in which they so tenaciously insert their hooked tails, as if

both were grown together. So long as they are young and feeble, they

content themselves with such shells as they find empty on the strand, but

when grown to maturity, they attack living specimens, seize with their

sharp claws the snail, ere it can withdraw into its shell, and after

devouring its flesh, creep without ceremony into the conquered dwelling,

which fits them like a coat when they take a walk, and the mouth of which

they close when at rest with their largest forceps, in the same manner

as the original possessor used his operculum or lid. How remarkable that

an animal should thus find in another creature belonging to a totally

different class, the completion, as it were, of its being, and be

indebted to it for the protecting cover which its own skin is unable to

secrete!

[Illustration: Diogenes Hermit Crab.]

When the dwelling of the pagurus becomes inconveniently narrow, the

remedy is easy, for appropriate sea-shells abound wherever hermit crabs

exist. They are found on almost every coast, and every new scientific

voyage makes us acquainted with new species. According to Quoy and

Gaimard, they are particularly numerous at the Ladrones, New Guinea,

and Timor. The strand of the small island of Kewa, in Coupang Bay, was

entirely covered with them. In the heat of the day they seek the shade

of the bushes; but as soon as the cool of evening approaches, they come

forth by thousands. Although they make all large snail-houses answer

their purposes, they seem in this locality to prefer the large Sea

Nerites.

The famous East Indian Cocoa-nut Crab (_Birgus latro_), a kind of

intermediate link between the short and long tailed crabs, bears a

great resemblance to the paguri. It is said to climb the palm-trees, for

the sake of detaching the heavy nuts; but Mr. Darwin, who attentively

observed the animal on the Keeling Islands, tells us that it merely

lives upon those that spontaneously fall from the tree. To extract its

nourishment from the hard case, it shows an ingenuity which is one of

the most wonderful instances of animal instinct. It must first of all be

remarked, that its front pair of legs is terminated by very strong and

heavy pincers, the last pair by others, narrow and weak. After having

selected a nut fit for its dinner, the crab begins its operations by

tearing the husk, fibre by fibre, from that end under which the three

eye-holes are situated; it then hammers upon one of them with its heavy

claws, until an opening is made. Hereupon it turns round, and by the

aid of its posterior pincers, extracts the white albuminous substance.

It inhabits deep burrows, where it accumulates surprising quantities of

picked fibres of cocoa-nut husks, on which it rests as on a bed. Its

habits are diurnal; but every night it is said to pay a visit to the sea,

no doubt for the purpose of moistening its branchiæ. It is very good to

eat, living as it does on choice vegetable substances; and the great mass

of fat, accumulated under the tail of the larger ones, sometimes yields,

when melted, as much as a quart of limpid oil. Thus our taking possession

of the Keeling Islands, as a coaling station for the steamers from

Australia to Ceylon, bodes no good to the Birgus.

The long tail, which the paguri sedulously conceal in shells, serves the

shrimps and lobsters as their chief organ of locomotion, for although

these creatures have well-formed legs, they make but slow work of it when

they attempt to crawl. But nothing can equal the rapidity with which

they dart backwards through the water, by suddenly contracting their

tail. Thus the Lobster makes leaps of twenty feet at one single bound,

and the little shrimp equals it fully in velocity in proportion to its

size, and belongs unquestionably to the most active of the denizens of

the ocean. It swarms in incalculable numbers on the sandy shores of the

North Sea, where it is caught in nets attached to a long cross pole,

which the fishermen, walking knee-deep in the water, push along before

them. Boiled shrimps are a well known delicacy; and the _Squilla Mantis_

of the Mediterranean, which resembles our common shrimp in outer form,

but essentially differs from it in the formation of its branchiæ, which

float freely in the water, attached to the abdominal legs, holds an equal

rank in the estimation of the South Europeans.

[Illustration: Crustaceans and Oysters.]

[Illustration: Spotted Mantis Crab.]

But of all crustaceans, none approaches the Lobster in delicacy of taste.

This creature, the epicure's delight, loves to dwell in the deep clear

waters along bold rocky shores, where it is taken in wicker baskets, or

with small nets attached to iron hoops. About two millions of lobsters

are annually imported from Norway, although they are also found in great

abundance along the Scottish and Irish coasts. Thus, considering their

high price, they form a considerable article of trade; and yet they

are far from equalling in importance the minute Herring-crab (_Cancer

halecum_), which, by forming the chief nourishment of that invaluable

fish, renders in an indirect way incalculable services to man.

The lobster breeds in the summer months, depositing many thousands of

eggs in the sand, and leaving them there to be hatched by the sun. But

few, as may easily be imagined, live to attain a size befitting them to

appear in red livery on our tables. Like all crustaceans, the lobster

casts its shell annually, and with such perfection, that the discarded

garment, with all its appendages, perfectly resembles the living animal.

The process is curious enough to deserve a few lines of description.

When towards autumn, the time of casting the shell approaches, the

lobster retires to a silent nook, like a pious hermit to his cell, and

fasts several days. The shell thus detaches itself gradually from the

emaciated body, and a new and tender cuticle forms underneath. The old

dress seems now, however, to plague the lobster very much, to judge by

the efforts he makes to sever all remaining connection with it. Soon

the harness splits right through the back, like the cleft bark of a

tree, or a ripe seed-husk, and opens a wide gate to liberty. After much

tugging and wriggling, the legs, tail, and claws gradually follow the

body. The claws give the lobster most trouble; but he is well aware that

perseverance generally wins the day, and never ceases till the elastic

mass, which can be drawn out like india-rubber, and instantly resumes

its ordinary shape, has been forced through the narrow passage. It can

easily be supposed that, after such a violent struggle for freedom, the

lobster is not a little exhausted. Feeling his weakness, and the very

insufficient protection afforded him by his soft covering, he bashfully

retires from all society until his hardened case allows him to mix again

with his friends on terms of equality, for he well knows how inclined

they are to bite and devour a softer brother.

The facility with which the crustacea cast off their legs, and even

their heavy claws, when they have been wounded in one of these organs or

alarmed at thunder, is most remarkable. Without the least appearance of

pain, they then continue to run along upon their remaining legs. After

some time a new limb grows out of the old stump, but never attains the

size of the original limb.

At the beginning of the chapter I have already briefly described the

wonderful transformations of the barnacles, acorn-shells, and lerneæ, but

the changes which the young crabs, lobsters, prawns, and shrimps, have to

undergo ere they assume their perfect form are no less astonishing. Thus

in the earliest state of the small edible crab (_Carcinus mœnas_) we find

a creature with a preposterously large helmet-shaped head, ending behind

in a long spine, and furnished in front with two monstrous sessile eyes

like the windows of a lantern. By means of a long articulated tail the

restless Chimera continually turns head over heels. Claws are wanting,

and while the old crab is of course a perfect decapod, the young has only

four bifid legs, armed at the extremity with four long bristles, that are

continually pushing food towards the ciliated mouth. Who could imagine

that a creature like this should ever change into a crab, to which it

has not the least resemblance? But time does wonders. After the first

change of skin the body assumes something like its permanent shape, the

eyes become stalked, the claws are developed, and the legs resemble those

of the crab, but the tail is still long, and the swimming habit has not

yet been laid aside. At the next stage, while the little creature is

still about the eighth of an inch in diameter, the crab form is at length

completed, the abdomen folding in under the carapace. No wonder that

these larvæ were long supposed to be distinct types, and described under

the names of Zoëa and Megalops, until Mr. T. J. Thompson first discovered

their real nature.

[Illustration: Metamorphosis of Carcinus mœnas.

A. First stage. B. Second stage. C. Third stage, in which it begins to

assume the adult form. D. Perfect form.]

[Illustration: Phyllosoma.]

The life history of the Palinuri or spiny lobsters is equally curious.

They frequently weigh ten or twelve pounds each, and are distinguished

by the very large size of their lateral antennæ and by their feet

being unarmed with pincers. Surely nothing can be more dissimilar than

the glass crabs or _Phyllosomas_, thin as a leaf of paper, and so

transparent that their blue eyes are their only visible parts while

swimming in the water; and yet these flimsy creatures are nothing but the

young of the large and bulky Palinuri.

Though several of the lower crustaceans ascend into the regions of

eternal snow, while others hide themselves in the perpetual night of

subterranean grottoes; though many delight in the sweet waters of the

river or the lake, or rapidly multiply in stagnant pools, yet the chief

seat of their class, which altogether comprises about 1,600 known

species, is in the ocean and its littoral zone, where their numbers,

their voracity, and their powerful claws, render them the most formidable

enemies of all the lower aquatic animals that are not swift or cunning

enough to escape them. Even the fishes and cetaceans are, as we have

seen, exposed to their attacks; and as the whale, the carp, the sturgeon,

the shark, the perch, have each of them their peculiar crustacean

parasites, it can easily be imagined how large the number of still

unknown species must be which feast on that vast host of fishes that has

never yet been accurately examined. On the other hand, the crustaceans

constitute a great part of the food, as well of the sea-stars,

sea-urchins, annelides, and many of the molluscs, as also of the fishes

and sea-birds; and as they are found of all sizes, from microscopical

minuteness to the gigantic proportions of the _Inachus Kæmpferi_ of

Japan, the fore-arm of which measures four feet in length, and the others

in proportion, so that it covers about 25 feet square of ground, they are

able to satisfy the wants or the voracity of a vast number of enemies,

from the rotifer or the polyp that feed on tiny entomostraca or the larvæ

of the barnacle, to man, who selects a great variety of the fat and

luscious decapods for his share of the feast.

A great fecundity enables the crustaceans to bear up against all these

persecutions. 12,000 eggs have been found on the lobster; 6,807 on the

shrimp; 21,699 on the great crab (_Platycarcinus pagurus_). The lower

orders are still more prolific, for such is the rapidity with which

many of them come to maturity and begin to propagate that it has been

calculated that a single female Cyclops may be the progenitor in one

year of 4,442,189,120 young! Endowed with such powers, the crustaceans

are not likely to be extirpated, nor to disappoint the hopes of their

gastronomical admirers for many an age to come.

* * * * *

When we hear of fishes wandering about on the dry land, we cannot wonder

that some insects and arachnidans should depart so strangely from the

usual habits of their class as to select the sea for their habitation.

"There is a minute marine spider," says Mr. Gosse, "very common on most

parts of the coast, crawling sluggishly upon the smaller sea-weeds, which

seems, from its lack of centralisation, to realise our infant ideas of

Mr. Nobody; but zoologists have designated him as _Nymphon gracile_.

Widely different from the spiders of terra firma, in which an abdomen

some ten times as bulky as all the rest of the animal put together is the

most characteristic feature, the belly of our marine friend is reduced to

an atom not so big as a single joint of one of his eight legs; though his

thorax is more considerable, this is little more than the extended line

formed by the successive points of union of the said legs. These latter,

on the other hand, are long, stout, well-armed, and many-jointed; but,

apparently from the lack of the centralising principle, they are moved

heavily, sprawled hither and thither, and dragged about like the limbs

of an unfortunate who is afflicted with the gout." This strange little

creature has four eyes gleaming like diamonds, respires by the skin, and

its stomach is prolonged into each of its eight legs, which are thus

made the seats of digestion. Mr. Nobody and his marine relations, some

of which also attach themselves to fishes, form the small group of the

_Pycnogonida_ (πυκνος, _frequent_; γὁνυ _knee_) thus

named from their many-jointed legs.

It is a well-known fact that the winds will sometimes waft butterflies to

an immense distance from the shore. Thus _Acherontia atropos_ has been

found on the Atlantic a thousand miles from the nearest land; and while

Mr. Darwin was in the bay of San Blas, in Patagonia, he saw thousands of

butterflies hovering over the sea as far as the eye could reach. These

insects, of course, are nothing but stray wanderers on an alien and

hostile element; but _Leptopus longipes_, a species of bug, makes the

salt water its home; the Halobates, another hemipterous insect, faces the

tranquil mirror of the tropical seas as leisurely as our water-bugs sport

on the glassy surface of our ponds, and the _Gyrinus marinus_, a beetle

belonging to the family of the whirligigs, ambitiously seeks a wide

expanse, and may be seen curvetting about on the surface of the sea, and

darting down every now and then to seize its prey.

[Illustration: Stenopus hispidus.]

CHAP. XIV.

MARINE ANNELIDES.

The Annelides in general.--The Eunice sanguinea.--Beauty of the

Marine Annelides.--The Giant Nemertes.--The Food and Enemies of the

Annelides.--The Tubicole Annelides.--The Rotifera--Their Wonderful

Organisation.--The Synchæta Baltica.

The class of the Annelides, or annulated worms--to which also our common

earth-worm and the leech belong--peoples the seas with by far the greater

number of its genera and species. All of them are distinguished by an

elongated, and generally worm-like form of body, susceptible of great

extension and contraction. The body consists of a series of rings, or

segments, joined by a common elastic skin; and each ring, with the

exception of the first or foremost, which forms the head, and the last

which constitutes the tail, exactly resembles the others, only that

the rings in the middle part of the body are larger than those at the

extremities. The head is frequently provided with eyes, and more or less

perfect feelers; the mouth is armed in many species with strong jaws, or

incisive teeth. The blood is red, and circulates in a system of arteries

and veins.

[Illustration: Nervous Axis of an Annelidan.]

With the idea of a worm we generally connect that of incompleteness;

we are apt to consider them as beings equally uninteresting and ugly,

and disdain to enquire into the wonders of their organisation. But a

cursory examination of the _Eunice sanguinea_, a worm about two and a

half feet long, and frequently occurring on our coasts, would alone

suffice to give us a very different opinion of these despised, but far

from despicable creatures. The whole body is divided into segments

scarce a line and a half long, and ten or twelve lines broad, and

thus consists of about three hundred rings. A brain and three hundred

ganglions, from which about three thousand nervous branches proceed,

regulate the movements, sensations, and vegetative functions of an

Eunice. Two hundred and eighty stomachs digest its food, five hundred

and fifty branchiæ refresh its blood, six hundred hearts distribute this

vital fluid throughout the whole body, and thirty thousand muscles obey

the will of the worm, and execute its snake-like movements. What an

astonishing profusion of organs! Surely there is here but little occasion

to commiserate want, or to scoff at poverty!

And if we look to outward appearance, we shall find that many of the

marine annelides may well be reckoned among the handsomest of creatures.

They display the rainbow tints of the humming-birds, and the velvet,

metallic brilliancy of the most lustrous beetles. The vagrant species

that glide, serpent-like, through the crevices of the submarine rocks, or

half creeping, half swimming conceal themselves in the sand or mud, are

pre-eminently beautiful. The delighted naturalists have consequently given

them the most flattering and charming names of Greek mythology,--Nereis,

Euphrosyne, Eunice, Alciopa.

[Illustration: Nereis.]

"Talk no more of the violet as the emblem of modesty," exclaims De

Quatrefages, "look rather at our annelides, that, possessed of every

shining quality, hide themselves from our view, so that but few know of

the secret wonders that are hidden under the tufts of algæ, or on the

sandy bottom of the sea."

[Illustration: Aphrodita, or Sea-Mouse.]

In most of the wandering annelides, each segment is provided with

variously formed appendages, more or less developed, serving for

respiration and locomotion, or for aggression and defence; while in some

of the least perfect of the class, not a trace of an external organ is

to be found over the whole body. The great Band-worm (_Nemertes gigas_)

is one of the most remarkable examples of this low type of annelism.

It is from thirty to forty feet long, about half an inch broad, flat

like a ribbon, of brown or violet colour, and smooth and shining like

lackered leather. Among the loose stones, or in the hollows of the

rocks, where he principally lives on Anomiæ,--minute shells that attach

themselves to submarine bodies,--this giant worm forms a thousand

seemingly inextricable knots, which he is continually unravelling and

tying. When after having devoured all the food within his reach, or from

some other cause, he desires to shift his quarters, he stretches out a

long dark-coloured ribbon, surmounted by a head like that of a snake,

but without its wide mouth or dangerous fangs. The eye of the observer

sees no contraction of the muscles, no apparent cause or instrument

of locomotion; but the microscope teaches us that the Nemertes glides

along by help of the minute vibratory ciliæ with which his whole body is

covered. He hesitates, he tries here and there, until at last, and often

at a distance of fifteen or twenty feet, he finds a stone to his taste;

whereupon he slowly unrolls his length to convey himself to his new

resting place, and while the entangled folds are unravelling themselves

at one end, they form a new Gordian knot at the other. All the organs

of this worm are uncommonly simplified; the mouth is a scarce visible

circular opening, and the intestinal canal ends in a blind sack.

Nature has not in vain provided the more perfect annelides with the

bristly feet, which have been denied to the Nemertes and the sand-worm.

Almost all of them feed on a living prey,--Planarias and other minute

creatures--which they enclasp and transpierce with those formidable

weapons. Some, lying in wait, dart upon their victims as they heedlessly

swim by, seize them with their jaws, and stifle them in their deadly

embrace; others, of a more lively nature, seek them among the thickets

of corallines, millepores and algæ, and arrest them quickly ere they can

vanish in the sand.

But the annelides also are liable to many persecutions. The fishes are

perpetually at war with them; and when an imprudent annelide quits its

hidden lurking-place, or is uncovered by the motion of the waves, it may

reckon itself fortunate, indeed, if it escapes the greedy teeth of an

eel or a flat-fish. It is even affirmed of the latter, as it is of the

whelks, that they know perfectly well how to dig the annelides out of

the sand. The sea-spiders, lobsters, and other crustacea are the more

dangerous, as their hard shells render them perfectly invulnerable by the

bristling weapons of the annelides.

While the greater part of these worms lead a vagrant life, others, like

secluded hermits, dwell in self-constructed retreats which they never

leave. Their cells, which they begin to form very soon after having

left the egg, and which they afterwards continue extending and widening

according to the exigencies of their growth, generally consist of a

hard calcareous mass; but sometimes they are leathery or parchment-like

tubes, secreted by the skin of the animal, not however forming, as in the

mollusks, an integral part of the body, but remaining quite unconnected

with it. Thus these tubicole annelides spend their whole life within

doors, only now and then peeping out of their prison with the front part

of their head.

As they lead so different a life from their roaming relations, their

internal structure is very different, for where is the being whose

organisation does not perfectly harmonise with his wants? Thus, we find

here no bristling feet or lateral respiratory appendages; but instead of

these organs, which in this case would be completely useless, we find

the head surmounted by a beautiful crown of feathery tentaculæ, which

equally serve for breathing and the seizing of a passing prey. Completely

closed at the inferior extremity, the tube shows us at its upper end a

round opening, the only window through which our hermit can peep into the

world, seize his food, and refresh his blood by exposing his floating

branchiæ to the vivifying influence of the water.

Do not, therefore, reproach him with vanity or curiosity, if you see him

so often protrude his magnificently decorated head; but rejoice rather

that this habit, to which necessity obliges him, gives you a better

opportunity for closer observation. Place only a shell or stone covered

with _serpulas_ or _cymospiras_, into a vessel filled with sea-water, and

you will soon see how, in every tube, a small round cover is cautiously

raised, which hitherto hermetically closed the entrance, and prevented

you from prying into the interior. The door is open, and soon the inmate

makes his appearance. You now perceive small buds, here dark violet or

carmine, there blue or orange, or variously striped. See how they grow,

and gradually expand their splendid boughs! They are true flowers that

open before your eye, but flowers much more perfect than those which

adorn your garden, as they are endowed with voluntary motion and animal

life.

[Illustration: Serpula, attached to a Shell.]

At the least shock, at the least vibration of the water, the splendid

tufts contract, vanish with the rapidity of lightning, and hide

themselves in their stony dwellings, where, under cover of the protecting

lid, they bid defiance to their enemies.

Not all the tubicole annelides form grottos or houses of so complete

a structure as those I have just described. Many content themselves

with agglutinating sand or small shell-fragments into the form of

cylindrical tubes. But even in these inferior architectural labours of

the _Sabellas_, _Terebellas_, _Amphitrites_, &c., we find an astonishing

regularity and art; for these elegant little tubes, which we may often

pick up on the strand, where they lie mixed with the shells and algæ

cast out by the flood, consist of particles of almost equal size, so

artistically glued together, that the delicate walls have everywhere

an equal thickness. The form is cylindrical, or funnel-shaped, the

tube gradually widening from the lower to the upper end. Some of these

tubicoles live like solitary hermits, others love company; for instance,

the _Sabella alveolaris_, which often covers wide surfaces of rock,

near low-water mark with its aggregated tubes. When the flood recedes

nothing is seen but the closed orifices; but when covered with the rising

waters, the sandy surface transforms itself into a beautiful picture.

From each aperture stretches forth a neck ornamented with concentric

rings of golden hair, and terminating in a head embellished with a tiara

of delicately feathered, rainbow-tinted tentacula. The whole looks like

a garden-bed enamelled with gay flowers of elegant form and variegated

colours.

* * * * *

If size alone were a criterion of classification, the Rotifera would have

to be ranked among the microscopic Protozoa, as they are scarcely visible

to the naked eye; but a more complicated organisation separates them

widely from these lowest members of the animal kingdom, and entitles them

to be placed next to the worms.

[Illustration: Ptygura mehcerta.--(A rotifer highly magnified.)

1. Partially expanded.

2. Completely expanded, the cilia in action causing currents

indicated by the arrows.

3. Contracted. _a._ Contractile vesicle.

_b._ Situation of the anal orifice.

]

They are chiefly characterised by a remarkable rotatory or ciliary

apparatus, whose vibrating motions, whirling the water about in swift

circles or eddies, engulf in a fatal vortex their microscopic food, or

enable them to swim from place to place. Such is the crystal transparency

of these curious little creatures that their internal structure can be

easily recognised. The mouth is placed immediately below the rotatory

apparatus, and when once an unfortunate animalcule has been driven into

its gaping portals, it is presently crushed between a pair of formidable

sharp-toothed jaws, which are perpetually in motion, whether the animal

is taking food or not. After having undergone the action of this lively

apparatus, the aliment passes into a tubular stomach surrounded by a

cushion-like mass of cells commonly coloured with the hue of the food,

and, therefore, concluded to be connected with the digestive system.

[Illustration: Conochilus volvox.--(Highly magnified.)

_a._ Jaws and teeth. _b._ Papillæ. _c._ Glands. _d._ Ovarium.

]