In fact, few things in the way of food are amiss to the crayfish; living or dead, fresh or carrion, animal or vegetable, it is all one. Calcareous plants, such as the stoneworts (_Chara_), are highly acceptable; so are any kinds of succulent roots, such as carrots; and it is said that crayfish sometimes make short excursions inland, in search of vegetable food. Snails are devoured, shells and all; the cast coats of other crayfish are turned to account as supplies of needful calcareous matter; and the unprotected or weakly member of the family is {10} not spared. Crayfishes, in fact, are guilty of cannibalism in its worst form; and a French observer pathetically remarks, that, under certain circumstances, the males “_méconnaissent les plus saints devoirs;_” and, not content with mutilating or killing their spouses, after the fashion of animals of higher moral pretensions, they descend to the lowest depths of utilitarian turpitude, and finish by eating them. In the depth of winter, however, the most alert of crayfish can find little enough food; and hence, when they emerge from their hiding-places in the first warm days of spring, usually about March, the crayfishes are in poor condition. At this time, the females are found to be laden with eggs, of which from one to two hundred are attached beneath the tail, and look like a mass of minute berries (fig. 3, B). In May or June, these eggs are hatched, and give rise to minute young, which are sometimes to be found attached beneath the tail of the mother, under whose protection they spend the first few days of their existence. In this country, we do not set much store upon crayfishes as an article of food, but on the Continent, and especially in France, they are in great request. Paris alone, with its two millions of inhabitants, consumes annually from five to six millions of crayfishes, and pays about £16,000 for them. The natural productivity of the rivers of France has long been inadequate to supply the {11} demand for these delicacies; and hence, not only are large quantities imported from Germany, and elsewhere, but the artificial cultivation of crayfish has been successfully attempted on a considerable scale. Crayfishes are caught in various ways; sometimes the fisherman simply wades in the water and drags them out of their burrows; more commonly, hoop-nets baited with frogs are let down into the water and rapidly drawn up, when there is reason to think that crayfish have been attracted to the bait; or fires are lighted on the banks at night, and the crayfish, which are attracted, like moths, to the unwonted illumination, are scooped out with the hand or with nets. * * * * *