Nearly all the crustaceans are hardy and destructive, and fight not merely their enemies, but among each other. It matters little to them whether they lose a claw or a tail, for after a few weeks of repose those members grow again. Tandon records the fact that lobsters “which in an unfortunate encounter lost a limb, sick and debilitated, reappear at the end of a few months with a perfect limb, vigorous, and ready for service.” On the Spanish coast a certain crab is caught for its claw alone, which is considered excellent eating; this is pulled off, and the mutilated animal thrown back into the sea, likely enough to be retaken, and the same process repeated at some future time. Crustaceans are nearly all carnivorous, and are by no means particular what they eat. Some of them, however, show considerable appreciation for the oyster. Sometimes they eat each other. Mr. Rymer Jones tells a story of one which attacked and commenced to eat one slightly smaller than himself, and was then himself attacked and eaten by a companion, realising the old adage concerning fleas— “And these have smaller still to bite ’em, And so proceed, _ad infinitum_.” Some crustaceans, however, adopt a vegetable diet. The Robber Crab of the Polynesian Islands can not merely open a cocoa‐nut, but also enjoy its contents. The crab begins by tearing off the fibre at the extremity where the fruit is, always choosing the right hand. When this is removed, it strikes it with its great claws until an opening is made; it then inserts its slender claws, and by wriggling and turning itself about removes the contents of the nut. [Illustration: CRABS (_Cancer pagurus_).] The proper mode of boiling crabs has long been a subject on which doctors have disagreed. Who, then, shall decide? That there is cruelty associated with the taking away of life it would be hard to deny, but the correctness of choice between gradual stewing in slowly‐heated water and being plunged at once into the seething, bubbling cauldron requires “the revelations of a boiled crab” to clear up; and until a crustacean production under that or a like title appears, we shall continue to plunge our armour‐clad victims in water at 212 degrees of Fahrenheit’s thermometer, and leave the question as to the propriety of our so doing to those who are disposed to grapple with the subject for its own sake.