The bays, shallows, and mouths of rivers on the coast of Prince Edward’s Island abound in a species of seaweed known amongst the inhabitants as “eel-grass,” on which vast numbers of lobsters feed as in a rich sea-garden. To these favoured hunting grounds the lobster-catchers betake themselves, and by wading little more than half-leg deep gather as many as they require. A bushel basket has been filled in this way in less than an hour.
Like the branching growths of submarine life which form the connecting link between the vegetable and animal kingdoms, we find crustaceans dwelling, so to speak, on the border-lands of other races, and linking the shrimp, crab, and lobster families together; partaking of the nature of each, but being identical with neither; such are the so-called Squat Lobsters, or Galathea. Their singular alertness renders capture somewhat difficult. Like the lobster, they possess extraordinary powers of vision and retrograde movement. The horns are extremely long, and so sensitive that the slightest touch seems to reveal at once the nature of an approaching object, and enables the alarmed squat to seek a safe sanctuary between the rock clefts, from which it is by no means easy to withdraw him.
The spined lobster, crawfish, cray, or crowder, will, from its thorn-coated shell, long horns, powerful nippers, and generally formidable appearance, be familiar to most of our readers. Like most other crustaceans, the cray delights in a home among rugged sunken rocks, and is taken in the traps laid for ordinary lobsters and crabs. Their flesh, being of harder texture and sweeter flavour, is objected to by professed lobster-eaters; still, a well-conditioned spined lobster is by no means to be despised. Some portions of the Pacific Ocean, and the warm seas of the East, contain them in vast numbers. Many spots on the coast of South America, and the bays and inlets of the island of Juan Fernandez, literally swarm with them. Some idea may be formed of the abundance of animated creatures of this and other kinds to be taken in these seas by the following account of the fishing to be obtained in them, given by the Hon. F. Walpole:—“The fishing afforded the best return for labour, and a boat might be filled in four hours with hook and line only. Fish swarmed of every size and colour, and seemingly of every variety of appetite, for they took any bait. The bottom was literally lined with crawfish of a large size; some must have weighed five pounds at least. There needed no hook—a piece of anything let down on a string to the bottom was enough; they saw it, grasped it, and kept their hold till you had seized them by their long feelers and borne them into the boat, where they crawled about and extended their feelers as if in search of more bait.... We had crawfish for breakfast, crawfish for dinner, crawfish for supper, and crawfish for any incidental meal we could cram in between.” The coral reefs fringing the island of Mauritius afford shelter to numbers of the family of crawfish, which in both size and splendour of colouring far excel those taken in our seas.
The prawn and shrimp are included in the same order as the lobster and the crab, and species of these crustaceans are found in all seas. They are the scavengers of the ocean, and pick and devour any dead matter in the sea; hence they are particularly valuable in the aquarium. The art of shrimping will no doubt be familiar to all our readers, from visits made to our south-coast watering-places. In tropical climates the prawn attains the size of a small lobster—up to nine or ten inches in length, three being considered sufficient for a meal. Prawns are sold in Dublin six and seven inches in length, and are considered splendid feeding.
CHAPTER XIV.
Ocean Life.—The Harvest of the Sea.
Fishes and their Swimming Apparatus—The Bladder—Scientific Classification—Cartilaginous Fish—The Torpedo—A Living Galvanic Battery—The Shark—His Love for Man in a Gastronomic Sense—Stories of their Prowess—Catching a Shark—Their Interference with Whaling—The Tiger-Shark—African Worship of the Monster—The Dog-fish—The Sturgeon—Enormous Fecundity—Caviare—The Bony Fishes—The Flying Fish: its Feats; its Enemies—Youth of a Salmon—The Parr, the Smolt, and the Grilse—Flourishes in the Sea—The Ponds at Stormontfield—The Salmon’s Enemies—The Ettrick Shepherd—Canned Salmon, and where it comes from—The Fish a Drug in N. W. America—Canoes impeded by them—The Fisheries of the Columbia River—The Fishing Season—Modes of Catching Salmon—The Factories and Processes employed.
And now we proceed to still higher organisations. The fish must have their turn in a work treating of their natural home, the ocean.[43] Fishes, intended always to live in water, have wonderful organs to aid them in swimming. “The anterior limbs,” says Figuier, “which correspond with the arms in man and the wings in birds, are attached to each side of the trunk, immediately behind the head, and form the pectoral fins. The posterior limbs occupy the lower surface of the body, and form the ventral fins. The latter, which are always over the ventral line, may be placed before, beneath, or, as is most usual, behind the former. Fishes possess, besides these two pair of fins, odd fins. The fins which are found on the back or dorsum are called the back or dorsal fins, those at the end of the tail are the caudal fins; finally, there is frequently another attached to the lower extremity of the body, which is called the anal fin. These fins are always nearly of the same structure, consisting generally of a fold of the skin, supported by slender, flexible, cartilaginous, or osseous rays, connected by a thin membrane.” The muscles which move these fins are powerful. Further, nearly all species of fish possess a swimming bladder, over which the animal has control, and can thereby increase or diminish the specific gravity of its body. Immediately behind the head are the gill openings; respiration is effected by water, in its natural state always charged with air, being taken in at the mouth, which passes over the gills, and is afterwards ejected. The eyes in fish are usually very large.
The scientific classification of fishes usually adopted is that of Muller. He divided them into five groups, the Leptocardia, Cyclostomata, Selachia, Ganoidea, and Teleostea. The first of these is represented by a single genus, Amphioxus, a little slender gelatinous fish, rarely over two inches in length, and commonly found on all sandy coasts. The second order is characterised as serpentine, void of fins, and with a mouth formed for suction. The lamprey is a familiar example.