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CHAP. 51.—THE VARIOUS KINDS OF CRABS; THE PINNOTHERES, THE SEA URCHIN, COCKLES, AND SCALLOPS.

There are various kinds of crabs,1 known as carabi,2 astaci,3 maiæ,4 paguri,5 heracleotici,6 lions,7 and others of less note. The carabus differs8 from other crabs, in having a tail: in Phoenicia they are called hippoi,9 or horses, being of such extraordinary swiftness, that it is impossible to overtake them. Crabs are long-lived, and have eight feet, all of which are bent obliquely. In the female10 the first foot is double, in the male single; besides which, the animal has two claws with indented pincers. The upper part only of these fore-feet is moveable, the lower being immoveable: the right claw is the largest in them all.11 Sometimes they assemble together in large bodies; 12 but as they are unable to cross the mouth of the Euxine, they turn back again and go round by land, and the road by which they travel is to be seen all beaten down with their foot-marks.

The smallest crab of any is that known as the pinnotheres,13 and hence it is peculiarly exposed to danger; its shrewdness, however, is evinced by its concealing itself in the shell of the oyster; and as it grows larger, it removes to those of a larger size.

Crabs, when alarmed, go backwards as swiftly as when moving forwards. They fight with one another like rams, butting at each other with their horns. They have14 a mode of curing themselves of the bites of serpents. It is said,15 that while the sun is passing through the sign of Cancer, the dead bodies of the crabs, which are lying thrown up on the shore, are transformed into serpents.

To the same class16 also belongs the sea-urchin,17 which has spines in place of feet18 its mode of moving along is to roll like a ball, hence it is that these animals are often found with their prickles rubbed off. Those among them which have the longest spines of all, are known by the name of echinometræ,19 while at the same time their body is the very smallest. They are not all of them of the same glassy colour; in the vicinity of Torone20 they are white,21 with very short spines. The eggs22 of all of them are bitter, and are five in number; the mouth is situate in the middle of the body, and faces the earth.23 It is said 24 that these creatures foreknow the approach of a storm at sea, and that they take up little stones with which they cover25 themselves, and so provide a sort of ballast against their volubility, for they are very unwilling by rolling along to wear away their prickles. As soon as seafaring persons observe this, they at once moor their ship with several anchors.

(32.) To the same genus26 also belong both land and water27 snails, which thrust the body forth from their abode, and extend or contract two horns, as it were. They are without eyes,28 and have, therefore, to feel their way, by means of these horns.

(33.) Sea-scallops29 are considered to belong to the same class, which also conceal themselves during severe frosts and great heats; the onyches,30 too, which shine in the dark like fire, and in the mouth even while being eaten.

1 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. iv. c. 2, has a somewhat similar passage. "The kinds of crabs are numerous, and not easily to be enumerated. First, there are those known as maim, then the paguri, which are also called 'heracleotici;' and, after them, the river crabs. There are others, again, of a smaller size, and which, for the most part, are known by no name in particular."

2 This is, no doubt, the cray-fish, the same animal that has been called the "locusta" in the preceding Chapter. Aristotle states, B. iv. c. 8, that the carabus has the thorax rough and spiny. It is most probable, that it is from this name that our word "crab" is derived.

3 Cuvier says, that the astacus, which is very accurately described by Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. iv. c. 8, is indisputably the homard of the French (the common lobster of the English); the Cancer gammarius of Linnæus. Pliny, in another place, B. xxx. c. ii., describes it himself under the name of elephantus.

4 Cuvier remarks, that according to Aristotle, B. iv. c. 2, the maiæ are in the number of the καρκίνοι, or crabs that have a short tail concealed beneath the body, being those of the largest kind. The same philosopher, De Part. Anim. B. iv. c. 8, adds, that these have also short feet and a hard shell. Cuvier says, that many writers have applied this name to the crabs at the present day belonging to the genus inachus, and more especially the Cancer maia of Linnæus. He is more inclined, however, to think that the maia was the common French crab, known as poupart or tourtue, the Cancer pagurus of Linnæus.

5 Hardouin says, that these are the same that the Venetians were in the habit of calling "cancro poro," the last word being a corruption, as he thinks, of pagurus. Aristotle says, loc. cit., that they were crabs of middling size.

6 Or Heracleotic crabs. Aristotle says, De Partib. Anim. B. iv. c. 8, that these crabs had shorter feet and thinner than those of the maiæ. Cuvier suggests, that these may be the commonest kind of crab, the Cancer Mænas of Linnæus, or a species very similar.

7 "Leones." This name is not found in Aristotle's account, but it is found in Athenæus, B. iii. c. 106; and in Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. xiv. c. 9. According to Diphilus, as quoted by Atheneus, it was of larger size than the astacus. Ælian describes it as more slender in shape than the crayfish, and partly of a bluish colour, and with very large forcipes, in which it resembles, Cuvier says, the homard of the French. It is possible, however, he adds, that it may have been only a second name given to the astacus already mentioned; as both Pliny and Ælian, who were not critical observers, are very liable to make errors in names.

8 Aristotle, Cuvier observes, states the carcini, or crabs, have no tail, the fact being that the tail is extremely small, and is concealed, as it were, in a furrow in the under part of the body. The cray-fish, on the other hand, has a large and broad tail.

9 ῾ιπποὶ. The more common reading is ἱππε̂ις, "horsemen." Cuvier thinks, that in all probability, these are a kind of crab with very long legs, vulgarly known as the sea-spider; the Macropodia and the Leptopodia of Linnæus.

10 Hardouin remarks, that Aristotle says this only of the carabi, or cray-fish, and not of the crabs in general; and that, on the contrary, in B. v. c. 7, he says, that in the crab the male does not differ in conformation from the female, except in the opercule. There seems, in reality, to be no foundation for the statement here made by Pliny.

11 Both in the crab and the cray-fish, Aristotle says.

12 Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. vii. c. 24, calls this kind of crab δρομίας, the "runner," from the great distance it is known to travel. He says, that they meet together, coming in one by one, at a certain bay in the Thracian Bosporus, where those who have arrived wait for the others; and that on finding that the waves of the Euxine are sufficiently violent to sweep them away, they unite in a dense body, and then waiting till the waters have retired, make a passage across the straits.

13 Cuvier remarks, that Hardouin is correct in considering this the same as the crab known in France as Bernard the Hermit (our hermit-crab), tile Cancer Bernardus of Linnæus, a species of the genus now known as the Pagur. This animal hides its tail and lower extremities in the empty shells of whelks, or other univalves. Cuvier suggests that our author committed a slip of the pen, in using the word oyster here for shell-fish. This is the καρκίνιον, probably, of Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. v. c. 16, and De Part. Anim. B. iv. c. 8; and it is most probable that, as Cuvier states, the real πιννοτήρης of Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. iv. c. 4, and B. v. c. 14, was another of the crustacea, of which Pliny speaks under the same name in c. 66. This last is a small crab, that lives in the shells of bivalves, such as mussels, &, but not when empty. See the Notes to c. 66.

14 This circumstance is more fully treated of in B. xxxii. c. 19,

15 Our author speaks rather more guardedly here than usual; and Har- douin seems almost inclined to believe the story. Ovid also alludes to this story in the Met. B. xv. 1. 370, et seq. "If you take off the bending claws from the crab of the sea-shore, and bury the rest in the earth, a scorpion will come forth from the part so buried, and will threaten with its crooked tail."

16 Of animals covered with a thin crust.

17 The sea-urchin, the herisson de mer of the French, and the Echinus of Linnæus.

18 Cuvier remarks, that it does not use the spines or prickles for this purpose, but that it moves by means of tentacules, which it projects from between its prickles.

19 The Echinus cidaris of Linnæus; with a small body, and very long spines. The name, according to Hardouin, is from the Greek, meaning the "mother of the echini."

20 See B. iv. c. 17.

21 The same, Cuvier says, with the Echinus spatagus of Linnæus.

22 Not "ova," Cuvier says, but "ovaria" rather. Each urchin has five "ovaria," arranged in the form of stars. They are supposed to be hermaphroditical, but there is considerable doubt on the subject.

23 The mouth of the sea-urchin, armed with five teeth, is generally turned to the ground, Cuvier says.

24 Plutarch, in his Book "on the Instincts of Animals." Oppian, Halieut. B. ii. 1. 225, and Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. vii. c. 44, all mention this.

25 This idea probably arose from the fact of their being sometimes found with stones sticking between their spines or prickles.

26 The thin-crusted animals.

27 Known to us as periwinkles.

28 It is now known, thanks to the research of Swammerdam, that the black points at the extremity of the great horns of the land snail, or Helix terrestris, and at the base of them in the water snail, are eyes.

29 "Pectines in mari;" literally, "sea-combs." The French still call them by a similar name, "peignes." They are known also in France as "coquilles de St. Jaques," or St. James's shells; probably, because worn by pilgrims who had visited the shrine of St. Jago, at Compostella. In- deed, the scallop shell was a favourite emblem with the palmers and pilgrims of the middle ages, who were in the habit of wearing it on their return in the hat.

30 He Latinizes the Greek name, calling it "unguis"—"a nail;" and, according to Varro, they were so called from their resemblance to the human nail. Pliny mentions them again in c. 87 of this Book, and in B. xxxii. c. 53, where he states that they are also called "dactyli," or "fingers." Cuvier says, that under this name are meant the pholades, a bivalve shell-fish, which give forth a very brilliant light.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

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