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.