the coast of Nova Scotia, for it is given on his authority that he once witnessed a terrible battle between two armies of lobsters, and that they fought with such fury that the shore was strewn with their claws."

If in the pursuit of food only these bitter battles are fought by these creatures, we can imagine the nature of some combats when the females are to the front and the most beautiful claimed by the conquerors.

It seldom happens that in these food fights one lobster actually kills another. No fisherman in this neighborhood has ever seen death on these lines; the loss of a limb being the extent of the injury done to the defeated. Is it possible there can be such ideas as those of order and honor among lobsters, and that in this strife for sustenance there is to be no biting or striking below the head or claws; and that the marvellous facility they have of healing a wound in an instant, by casting off the limb at the last joint and throwing a film or cicatrix over the wound, thus preventing bleeding and further injury to the creature,' is known to the race and is acted upon in these contentions; while striking below the head and fighting to the death is only allowed in their more fierce and violent life battles, when they are contending, perhaps, for the best home caverns and the society of the best females? That this is the case seems probable from the fact that when first brought face to face with that rare monster, Man, they are desperate, and will instantly kill each other other to escape from his presence and power; so much so that he has to tie their claws, or cut the higher tendon, which prevents them from opening

• See White's British Crustacea, p. 103.

The least prick through the shell of any crustacean will cause it to bleed to death quickly. I have often seen this happening without the creature knowing it, so slight was the wound. Seeing death approaching it so stealthily, I have sometimes frightened the creature by dart

their nippers. Further, this escaping of the conquered from the fisherman's pots helps us to realize that lobsters are not the stupid creatures some would have us believe. Evidently they know all the conditions of the trap man has so skilfully made for their capture, and how to get in and out of it when it suits their purpose; and also that their being ensnared by him comes from an undesigned act of theirs, viz., by lifting what appeared to them to be the seabottom and themselves gently to the surface by a string, a fact of which they had no conception, for what lobster could imagine that what appeared to be the foundations of the great deep could be so quietly moved? Again, another fact connected with their fighting habits presents itself to us. I refer to the statement that our fishermen have never known one of these creatures attempt to taste the fresh sweet arm of a defeated foe, which clearly shows that lobsters have no cannibal propensities.

I will now consider the acts of mimicry in lobsters. Their enemies are all the skates, congers and larger cuttles. with possibly the great crab. The former violently hunt for them amongst the rocks, and with their long noses quickly turn them out of the crevices and often swallow them whole.

The Octopus vulgaris hunts them in like manner; and with its spider-like arms and strong suckers will drag them out from any fissure; and, when hunger presses, it has been known to force itself between the rods of the strong wicker stores of the fisherman, and devour them without mercy.

To evade these the lobsters can- according to the grounds they are on

Ing a sharp instrument into the toe of the injured limb. This greater pain has made it quickly throw off the now doubly-injured limb, when at the same moment it covered the orifice with a film, and in this manner saved its own life.

assume all the colors shading between a dark blue, through brown, to a whitish cream-color, mostly by a mottling process; and as in deep water the bottom is much spotted in some places with quantities of dead-white sea-shells and cream-colored corallines," the utility of these colors in this form, in the lobster, is apparent, as it puts them in harmony with the above conditions. Near the shore the umbrageous, palmlike laminarian forests cover the dark, rocky bottom; under this shade at midday it is only twilight, and in the caverns and caves it has the darkness of night; here in the day their dark-blue color beautifully blends with their surroundings; and in the night we are certain they are safe from the eyes of their pursuers.

Bell, in his great work, "British Stalkeyed Crustacea," noted (and his observation was confirmed by Couch) that there is as much difference in the color of lobsters as there is between the white race and the African; and, from it, concluded that lobsters do not wander far from certain localities, as each situation impresses its own shade on the shells."

This comes very near our idea of mimicry in these creatures, but unfortunately it gives the credit of the change to the sea-bottom instead of to the lobster.

Here I will look at the Maia squinado, or the

SPIDER CRAB.

These are found in all our western and southern waters, and are plentiful off the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, where they are often found in crab pots, set for the capture of the great crab, into which they are enticed by the same bait.

It was thought that these stilted

More especially the Alcyonium (Linn). This sponge-like coral, in some places on the seabottom, is found in vast masses. I have seen as

spiders were weak and shaky on their legs, but really it is not so. They are well adapted for climbing up the long stems of the laminarian sea-weeds and running over and foraging among their tangled leaves.

Even the fisherman's net is often used in the same manner when hanging from the boat to the sea-bottom; for, when seeking or leaving food they will run over it as easily as a mason will his ladder, or a spider its web.

And when it comes to the getting of the fish from the net, they are the most violent of all the crabs; for with these apparently weak nippers, they will cleave the net as clean as though it were cut with scissors, and carry away portions of it with their stolen food.

As a rule they are day feeders, and delight in the warmth of our shallow waters; and during hot summer weather it is nothing uncommon to see them lying in the crown of these palm trees of the sea, basking in the sunshine.

They are said to be the sweetest food of all the crabs, but their exterior is so rough with spines and tubercles that when in their finest form neither man nor fish cares to have much to do with them. In the moulting season, however, all this is changed; for when they are in this plastic condition nearly all the predatory fishes are their enemies and are anxious to taste this dainty. The spider crab, seems to know this, and when passing through this phase of weakness falls back on a splendid form of mimicry for protection, by covering its exposed parts with seaweeds. These are entwined among the hairs and spines, and stuck in all the joints and crevices of the creature.

On looking carefully over several of them I have doubted if the decoration were really adjusted by the wearers, because weeds were growing beyond

many as sixteen in a square foot of the ocean bed drawn up on a fisherman's hook.

See Bell's British Stalk-eyed Crustacea, p. 254.

the reach of their claws; hence I have concluded that after congress, knowing their unprotected state, the male had assisted in this important and needful act. When the males' troubles in connection with exuviation come on, the females perform the same kindness to their friends in danger. The weeds are of many kinds; among them I noted the Zostera marina, Chorda filum, Ulva latissima, Porphyra vulgaris, Enteromorpha compressa and intestinalis; and so well is this transformation accomplished that the ordinary eye cannot distinguish them from the sea-bottom. To the youngsters of the race they must be the veritable Santa Claus of the sea.

When in this disguised condition they are so fearless that they will often venture far out on the gray sands in search of soft and suitable food, where they are often caught by the score in ground seines.

But when the carapace has hardened through age, these decorations are generally dispensed with; and their spines and color-mimicry are again trusted to for defence. Thus where the olive seaweed preponderates and its dark shades are thrown on the rocks, the creature assumes a reddish-brown hue which blends well with its surroundings; but The Contemporary Review.

in deep water on stony grounds, where a lighter color prevails, a brownishgray color is assumed throughout on claws and carapace, which harmonizes well with its environment.

Again, I have reasons for believing that all the species of spider crabs in British waters more or less mimic their surroundings.

Hayes araneus is so fond of this mimetical state that it always keeps itself fully dressed whatever its personal condition; and various algæ are piled on its legs and carapace in such quantities as to make it difficult to know it from a bouquet of weeds; while Pisa Gibbsii, which lives in deeper water, manages so to cover itself with sponges and corals that no one but the initiated would think a crab was underneath.

Again, in the West Indian seas the spider crab, Macropodia occidentalis, also acts on these mimetic lines, and imitates the colors and conditions of its vicinity by disfiguring itself with sea-weeds and sponges; and when in this form watches for its prey.10

In closing I may remark that I have not exhausted the subject of mimicry, having reasons for thinking that all the crabs on our coast delight in tricks, and more or less practice deception. Matthias Dunn.

In the old times it was taken for granted in literature, and presumably also in life, that children were under a considerable obligation to their parents for the bare fact of existence. Many affecting appeals in drama from father to child resolve themselves simply into the following inquiry: But for me where

1

10 See Linn. Trans., xiv., 335, and White's British Crustacea, p. 13.

would you have been? and its corollary. Since you owe everything to me, is it not reasonable that you should display your gratitude by doing what I ask of you? Undoubtedly there was a good deal of logic in the plea, though I cannot recollect that it was ever successful. Still, the whole scheme of filial duty was based originally on the belief that it was very good of parents to

bring their children into the world; and it dates back to an age when people married explicitly in order to have children, and when every man owed it to his family not to die without lineage. Gradually, however, that change came to pass which makes the dividing line between the modern world and the ancient-the change in the relations between woman and man. The unit of society was no longer the family, but the individual, who sought his own good and his own completion, irrespective of his family connections. The bride assumed a new importance, a value in her own right, since man no longer demanded in marriage a woman, but the woman; and, as romanticism strengthened, the thought of issue in marriage receded further and further into the background. And so it has gone on. Shakespeare, in the Sonnets, utters his magnificent laudation of the "marriage of true minds;" but you also find him insisting on the notion that "of fairest creatures we desire increase." In Browning, who is your typical modern poet of love, the man thinks of nothing in heaven or earth but the woman, the woman of nothing but the man. And to come down to prose, I would assert boldly that those of us who marry to please ourselveswhich is, upon the whole, the usual proceeding-desire simply the society of a certain person, with whom to live out life, and accept the consequences, with or without enthusiasm. We do not feel that in bringing infants into the world we are fulfilling a sacred duty; we are inclined, perhaps, to look upon them as the inevitable outcome of an arrangement which our lives demand. What is more, our neighbors are inclined to take the same view of the matter. We know exactly the area of the world's surface, and the statistics of population terrify us; we all realize how few places there are and how many seek them; and, by a nat

ural consequence, we deprecate rather than rejoice in what Tennyson called "the torrent of babies."

I

Still, there was always the old argument to fall back on: if we did good to no one else, at least our children would thank us for the original benefit of existence; and till this century the argument was never challenged. Edipus, Job, or Swift, the famous unhappy, might curse the day when they were born, but mankind regarded their utterance as a startling paradox, a final proof of their exceptional infelicity. Now, pessimism has gradually pervaded the air; and though men and women cling more tenaciously to life than ever they did, and in order to go on breathing will submit to the perpetuity of a German water-cure, the world at large is ready to question whether life really is worth living. believe the subject has been discussed during the vacant months of one autumn by the Daily Telegraph, and that clinches the evidence for the existence of pessimism. That being so, how is a father to say "My son, you are indebted to me for your life," when he knows that his son may retort, "Sir, I was never consulted in the matter"? The father has brought the child into the world; but suppose the child does not like the world when it gets there, how is he to answer for it? He cannot say that he married in order to confer the blessing of existence upon other creatures; he cannot say that duty impelled him to do so; and society will not even applaud him for having given another subject to Her Majesty, Her Majesty's subjects. being already too thick upon the ground. The son's retort, if it be made, seems to me unanswerable, and the father can only confess that he has taken an unpardonable liberty with another human being.

Add to this that the propensity of the human mind to fatalism has flung us into a blind belief in the unlimited

ancestry, we are taught to believe by our modern preachers, the dramatists and novel writers, determines absolutely not only the child's character, but the events in his or her life. Consequently, for whatever misfortunes befall the child, for whatever misdeeds he may commit, the parents are responsible, who brought him inconsiderately into the world; and especially the father, since with him the business of selection is still held chiefly to lie. Take all these considerations together -I believe they exist, though obscurely and half realized, at the back of many minds and can you wonder at the apologetic attitude which the modern parent assumes to the modern child? It is no longer, "My son, I am your father, and your mother is your mother, and if you do not love, honor and obey us you are an ungrateful dog." Rather the poor man has the air of saying: "My dear boy, my constitution is not all it ought to be, and my great-grandfather committed suicide; what can I do to atone for the gout which will certainly be your portion, and the hereditary bias which may probably incline you to cut your throat? Take five shillings a week pocket-money, and try to bear up.-My dear girl, your mother's great-aunt ran away with the footman; and the worst is that I knew the fact when I married.-Do not, I beseech you, let me have to reproach myself more than I already do for having started you in life with this fatal predisposition to levity of conduct."

Perhaps the state of mind which I have described is rather inculcated than attained; perhaps not even doctors inquire with any accuracy into the medical pedigree of the young ladies whom they desire to marry; and perhaps the world in general would still approve rather than reprobate the action of a lady who, when her fiancé was ordered to South Africa with lung disease, to

all appearance a doomed man, refused to break off the engagement, married him and, in a few years, brought him back as strong as the rest of us. However, the fact remains that to-day the morality of her action, as well as its wisdom, would be questioned; half a century ago she would have been hailed as a heroine. I do not know that public opinion on this matter has yet become sufficiently ascertained to affect conduct, though I believe that in a short time it will be difficult for any man or woman with insanity in the family to get married. But I am sure that the sense of parental responsibility has developed to an extraordinary degree within the century that is just closing. A hundred years ago, or less, if parents saw that their children were in good health, had proper food and dress, and acquired, in addition to their rudiments, the accomplishments necessary to their station-a little French, music and drawing for the girls, a little Latin and Greek for the boys-the parents were held to be amply fulfilling their duty. The duty of children, on the other hand, was equally plain: to learn their lessons, to keep out of the way of their elders when they were not wanted, and to be cheerful, and not noisy, when they were encouraged to appear. Consider, for a moment, in this connection the writings of Miss Austen, which I maintain to be, among other things, a series of invaluable documents for the social history of her time. Miss Austen-I have it on the authority of the "Dictionary of National Biography"loved children, and they loved her. But I confess I should never have guessed it from her writings, for in them "boys" always rhymes to "noise," and the most frequent object of her satire is "the injudicious mother," who does not keep her children where they ought to bein the nursery. Nowadays we are in a lamentable transition period. We still think our children a nuisance-for the