Crab, Shrimp, and Lobster Lore

Part 1

CRAB, SHRIMP, AND LOBSTER LORE.

CRAB, SHRIMP, AND LOBSTER LORE,

GATHERED AMONGST THE ROCKS AT THE SEA-SHORE, BY THE RIVERSIDE, AND IN THE FOREST.

BY W. B. LORD, R.A.

AUTHOR OF “SEA-FISH, AND HOW TO CATCH THEM,” “THE SILK WORM BOOK.” ETC. ETC.

LONDON: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE. 1867.

LONDON: R. CLAY, SON, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL.

PREFACE.

What say you to a ramble among the fairy rock pools, weed-covered ledges, and gem-decked parterres bordering the gardens of the sea? Where ocean plants and flowrets of a thousand hues and tints wave their trailing tendrils, and unfold their feathery fronds, in the crystal waters, and to an expedition to far-off lands and tropic islands raised from the sea’s depths by the mighty labours of the tiny coral insect; where the tough roots of the graceful, fern-like palms, are ever bathed by the snow-white foam, and where the fresh sea breeze, sings merrily through the grove, to the deep-toned thunder of the surf as it breaks on the wide-stretching reef, and is scattered in a rainbow shower far within the still lagunes beyond its rampart-like borders. We do not journey thus far to gather gold, gems, or pearls, neither is our object warlike, although we purpose visiting the mailed hosts in and about their strongholds, and investigating the economy of the submarine armour-clads, in their own harbours. Should the adventure be to your taste, we will, together, explore the keeps, caverns, and points of vantage in which some of these sea champions reside, inspect the armories with which they are furnished, and note the nature and quality of their equipment. As man makes war on his fellow-man, and devises not only weapons of offence and destruction, but shields and defensive armour wherewith to protect himself, so nature--from whom many of the most perfect examples of both have been borrowed by the human race--furnishes to the swordfish, the long and sharp rapier, with which he deals out death to the huge, and mighty whale; the beautifully barbed spear to the sting ray, and the dagger-like spines which arm so many of the freebooters of the sea: the massive mail of the turtle; the castles of exquisite design in which the shell-bearing molluscs dwell, and the armour of proof possessed by the crustaceæ, are all fashioned by the same skilled hand; and so marvellously perfect and admirable are their adaptation to the purposes for which they are intended, that man, with all his boasted intelligence, can only wonder, admire, and endeavour to imitate.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

CRABS 1

SHRIMPS AND PRAWNS 73

LOBSTERS 90

RIVER CRAYFISH 106

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE

A PARTY OF “OU-OU” HUNTERS Frontispiece.

“CANCER,” A SIGN OF THE ZODIAC 1

A CRAB IN TESSELATED PAVEMENT 2

“BABY CRABS,” OR ZOËA 4, 5

LARGE EDIBLE CRAB (Cancer pagurus) 8

CRAB POT 9

A “BECUED CREEPER” 11

FISH-HOOK FASTENINGS 12

LOOP SLIP 13

STONE HITCH 13

FRAME REEL 15

Part 2

GUT KNOT 16

KNIFE TWISTER 17

FISHING LEADS 20

TRAVELLER LINE 21

HARBOUR CRAB (Carcinus maenas) 28

VELVET SWIMMING CRAB (Portunus puber) 30

COMMON SLENDER SPIDER CRAB (Stenorynchus tenuirostris) 33

Pagurus Bernhardus 34

VENUS’S FLOWER-BASKET (Euplectella speciosa) 36

COMMON PEA CRAB (Pinnotheres pisum) 42

PINNA PEA CRAB (P. veterum) 43

THE “OU-OU,” OR COCOA-NUT CRAB (Birgus latro) 46

THE EUROPEAN LAND CRAB (Thelphusa fluviatilis) 56

COMMON SAND SHRIMP (Crangon vulgaris) 74

THE DREDGE 75

SAND SHRIMP NET 76

POLE SHRIMP NET 78

PRAWN NET 80

COMMON PRAWN AND PARASITE 86

THE COMMON ENGLISH LOBSTER (Homarus vulgaris) 90

LOBSTER TRAP 91

HATCHING TROUGH (French) 92

PAN AND TUB ARRANGEMENT 93

NORWAY LOBSTER (Nephrops Norvegicus) 95

SPINED LOBSTER, OR CRAY (Palinurus vulgaris) 100

THE COMMON RIVER CRAY (Astacus fluviatilis) 106

INTRODUCTION.

The crustaceans, to whose homes we propose bending our steps, have some strange and note-worthy peculiarities of form, structure, and habits. Instead of, like ordinary creatures, having skeletons in them, on which their tissues are disposed (much as fashionable milliners arrange the captivating raiment of the fair), they, in an apparently perverse and independent spirit, adopt a custom of their own, which to us would, to say the very least of it, prove most uncomfortable and inconvenient, and wear their skeletons outside instead of in; and although fashions do not (so far as our experience has gone) change in the realms of King Neptune, and no startling announcement meets the eager eye of Mrs. Crab, or the charming Misses Lobster, that a sweet new thing in skeletons has just arrived at the emporium of Sponge, Limpet, and Co. Limited, no crustacean lady or gentleman ever thinks of being content with one, for the term of her or his natural life; but as the external coverings become worn, and feel uncomfortably circumscribed, a restlessness, and yearning for variety is felt; and, like Professor Owen, their longings are for a new skeleton, and, like that gifted anatomist, rest not, until one is obtained. Unlike the page who, in a complete suit of armour, accompanied his noble master to the Holy Wars, and, as the legend goes, returned after years of absence, a dwarf, from having nothing else to wear, our friends are more prolific in expedient, as will be seen by those who investigate.

Part 3

CRAB, SHRIMP, AND LOBSTER LORE.

CRABS.

From the very earliest periods of the world’s history the family of Crab appears to have been well known and much respected, and the Zodiac would be incomplete without its “Cancer.” The picture from which the accompanying illustration is taken was drawn by an artist of the thirteenth century, and appears as an embellishment in a Prayer-book which afterwards became the property of Queen Mary, and is now in the British Museum. It serves to show the idea entertained in this country of that particular sign at the period referred to. Those remarkably odd fellows the early Romans, even in their time, were not the sort of folks to overlook or heedlessly pass by the merits of so distinguished a gentleman as Mr. Cancer. He was well known and highly appreciated in the Seven-hilled City long before Art, except as brought to bear on the delineation of rude and uncouth patterns on the skins of the inhabitants, was known in this country. But when the restless Roman gentry, before referred to, cast their lot on a distant shore, and settled in the savage British Isles, they bore with them memories not to be effaced or treated lightly. Tesselated pavements in Cancer’s honour were elaborately wrought, and carefully laid down by them in the villas they here built for themselves. The accompanying illustration represents a portion of one of these pavements discovered at Cirencester in the year 1783.

A Roman oyster-knife was found buried not far from the site of one of these ancient villas.

A great deal of this esteem, it is to be feared, somewhat resembled the great affection professed by a chief of the Feejee Islands for a very good-looking little midshipman of one of Her Majesty’s ships cruising among those fertile but questionable retreats. “I love him very much,” said the dusky potentate, “because he is so plump, and would make such a delicious roast with palm-top stuffing.” Apicius loved Crab because he was good in many ways. Hear what he says of Crab sausages: “Boil some of these animals, reduce them to a pulp; mix with this some spikenard, garum, pepper, and eggs; give to this the ordinary shape of sausages, place them on a stove or gridiron; and you will by this means obtain a delicate and tempting dish.” He also informs us that a Crab may be served whole, boiled, and accompanied by a seasoning of pepper, cummin, and rue, which the cook skilfully mixes with garum, honey, oil, and vinegar. Later on in history we find our friend Cancer depicted in heraldic devices, and among the armorial bearings of many influential families. So we see that his lineage is an ancient one. The family to which he belongs is extremely numerous, and it is with the peculiarities of some of its members that we shall now have to deal.

Among all the curious and quaint forms of animal life to be found in the sea, few for grotesque oddity can equal the baby Crabs, or Zoëa, as they are sometimes called. These interesting infants are not the least like their papa or mamma, and no respectable or fully-matured male or female Crab would ever own them as his or her offspring. An elfish little creature is the juvenile Crab, with a head scarcely deserving the name, and a pair of goggle bulls’-eyes as of two policemen’s lanterns rolled into one; a tail vastly too long for him, and an anti-garotte spear, quite as long as his absurd little body, attached to the spot where his coat-collar should be. The annexed illustrations will serve to give some idea of these prepossessing juveniles. They are the portraits of two little cousins. In this case, age, although it alters appearances, affects disposition but little, and, as you turn over some stone, fragment of wreck, or tuft of weed, in search of curiosities, young Master Crab will, in all probability, be found at home, and, like an enraged dentist, ready to do fierce battle against all intruders with his upraised pincers. This is the ill-disposed young gentleman who sends Lotty or Totty, with heartrending screams and pinched pettitoes, in wild dismay from the charming shell-floored pool, in which they have been paddling. Master Crab’s internal economy is just as curious as his external skeleton. One pair of jaws one would be disposed to think sufficient for any living creature of reasonable requirements; but he possesses eight, and, instead of exposing his teeth to the examination of the critical in matters of dentition, he carries them safely stowed away in the interior of his stomach, where they would be excessively hard to get at in cases of crustacean tooth-ache. With such appliances as these, the food cannot well be otherwise than perfectly masticated. A Crab’s liver is an odd organ to contemplate, and constitutes a considerable portion of the soft interior of the shell-like box in which the heart and other viscera are lodged. That well-known yellow delicacy known as the cream or fat of the Crab is liver, and nothing else. The lungs or gills are formed by those fringe-like appendages popularly known as the dead men’s fingers. The shell-shifting process before referred to, is common to all crustaceans; and our friend the Crab, when he feels his corselet getting rather tight for him, manages, by some extraordinary process, not only to extricate himself from it, together with his shell gauntlets and the powerful nippers with which he is provided, but performs other feats, compared with which those of the Davenport Brothers sink into utter insignificance; and we opine that, had those eminent spiritualists been called on to do by the aid of all their shadowy accomplices one half of that which Cancer and his cousins the lobsters and crays do unassisted, no Tom Fool’s knot would have been needed to complete their discomfiture. Not only are the too-constricted shell and claw coverings cast aside, but also the outer cornea of the eyes; the stem sheath of the eyes; the lining of the stomach with the internal teeth; the internal bones of the thorax; the lining membrane of the ear, and that covering the lungs; thus very nearly turning themselves inside out, as well as getting rid of their old suits of clothes. But all these wonderful operations are not performed with the ease with which the chrysalis sets free the painted butterfly, or the village maid, by touch of fairy wand, throws off her homely garb, and steps forth the gauzy glittering columbine in the transformation scene of a pantomime; but are works of time and trouble, the body appearing to dilate within its prison until the coffer-like cover formed by the shell slowly and by degrees gives way, the membranes one by one are torn asunder, the muscular tissue filling up the large claws and pincers undergoes a softening process which admits of its being drawn through the constrictions between the joints, and the crustacean and his old garments part company at last.

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