The insect seen from above.
“Among the fish that at this early season of the year (February) resort to the waters of York River, in Virginia, the Alewife, the Oldwife, called also the Bay Alewife, arrives in very considerable shoals, and in some seasons their number is almost incredible. They are fully of the size of a large herring, and are principally distinguished from the herring by a bay or red spot, above the gill-fin. They are, when caught from March to May, full-roed and fat, and at least as good a fish for the table as the herring.
“In this season, each of these Alewifes carries in her mouth an insect about two inches long, hanging with its back downwards, and firmly holding itself by its fourteen legs to the palate.
“It is with difficulty it can be separated, and never, perhaps, without injury to the jaws of the fish. The fishermen, therefore, consider the insect as essential to the life of the fish; for when it is taken out, and the fish is again thrown into the water, he is incapable of swimming, and soon dies. I endeavoured in numerous instances to preserve both the insect and the fish from injury, but was always obliged, either to destroy the one or injure the other.
“I have sometimes succeeded in taking out the insect in a brisk and lively state. As soon as he was set free from my grasp, he immediately scrambled nimbly back into the mouth of the fish and resumed his position. In every instance he was disgustingly corpulent and unpleasant to handle, and it seemed that, whether he had obtained his post by force or favour; whether he be a traveller or constant resident, or what else may be his business where he is found, he certainly fares sumptuously every day.
“The fish whose mouth he inhabits, comes about the same time with the shad into the rivers of Virginia from the ocean, and continues to travel upwards from the beginning of March to the middle of May. As long as they are caught on their passage up the river, they are found fat and fall of roe. Every fish which I saw had the Oniscus in his mouth, and I was assured, not only by the more ignorant fishermen, but by a very intelligent man who came down now and then to divert himself with fishing, that in forty years’ observation he had never seen a Bay Alewife without the louse.”
The Oniscus itself, as the author states, is not without its enemies, many of them being caught with two or three leeches attached to their body, and adhering so closely that their removal cost them their heads.
The Molucca Crab, ([Polyphemus gigas].)
Why the singular creature here represented should have the name Polyphemus given to it, is hard to guess. Polyphemus, as every schoolboy knows, was the fabled giant overcome by Ulysses, who is represented as having one eye in the centre of his forehead; whereas, this creature has two eyes and one horn. It is interesting from its being so nearly allied to many very minute species.