CHAPTER X.

CRUSTACÆ--BATTLE AND INTRIGUE.

If, from some rich collection of armor, of the middle ages, immediately after examining the mighty masses of iron in which our knights of old oppressed and half stifled themselves, we go to the Museum of Natural History, and examine the armor of the Crustacæ, we shall actually feel something very like contempt for our human skill. The former are a mere masquerade of absurd disguises, that seem especially designed for encumbering their warlike wearers, and rendering them impotent. But these latter, especially the armor of the terrible _Decapodes_, the ten-footed warriors of the waters, are so marvellously armed that had they but the stature and bulk of our human warriors, none of us could dare even to look upon them. The _veni vidi_ of Cæsar, would be eternally followed by his soon-ended _Vici_; they would not need to seize, or to strike; their very aspect would thrill, magnetise--utterly stupefy and subdue us.

There they are, all ready for the fight, armed at all points. Within that terrible arsenal, offensive and defensive, how lightly, yet how strongly are they armed. There are the strong nippers, mandibles, ready to craunch through iron itself, and the cuirasses, furnished with the thousand darts, every one of which cries aloud to the foe _Noli me tangere_. We ought to be very thankful to Nature, that has made them thus diminutive. If only the stature and bulk of man were given to them, who, who, and by what means, could engage with them? Fire arms would be in vain; the Elephant, vast and mighty, and intelligent as he is, would have to hide; the fierce Tiger, with lashing tail, blood-shotten eyes and fatal paw, would seek shelter on the topmost branches of the tallest trees, and the trice solid hide of the Rhinoceros, would no longer be invulnerable.

We perceive at once that the interior agent, the motive power of that machine, centralized within an almost invariable convex, has, even from that single peculiarity, a perfectly enormous force. The slender and delicate elegance of man, his longitudinal figure, divided into three parts, with four great and diverging appendages, distant, all, from his centre, make him, whatever we may say to the contrary, an essentially weak animal. In those armors of the old knights, in the great, telegraphic arms, and in the heavy, pendant legs, we, at a glance, see, and sadden, as we see, the unsteady, uncentralized creature; halting and staggering, that the slightest collision will beat to the earth. In the crustacæ, on the contrary, the appendages are at once so firmly, so neatly, and so closely, conjoined to the short, rounded, and compacted body, that every blow, every touch, every grasp, has the whole weight, and the whole force and impetus of the entire mass. Even to the extremity of its claws, every inch is instinct with nervous energy, mighty with the whole physical force.

It has two brain systems, head and body; but to concentrate its power thus, it must have no neck; head and body must be undivided, a dual unity. Marvellous, perfectly marvellous, simplification! The head combines eyes, feelers, claws and jaws. When the quick eye has discerned the enemy, or the prey, the feelers touch, the claws grasp, the jaws crush, and, immediately behind them, the stomach, which is itself furnished with a strong crushing machinery, triturates and digests whatever enters it. In an instant the prey is seized, crushed, digested, and disappears.

In this creature, every organ is superior.

The eyes can discern, both in front, and in rear. Convexed, exterior, and _en facettes_, they can, at a glance, sweep almost the entire horizon.

The antennæ, the feelers, organs of touch and trial, of warning and of guiding, have the sense of touch at their extremities, of hearing and of scent, at their base. An immense advantage, such as we do not possess. How would it be if the human hand could hear and smell? How rapid and concentrated would then be our power of observation. Divided among three senses, each of which works independently of the other, our impressions are, for that very reason, very often inexact or evanescent.

Of the ten feet of the Decapodes, six are hands, hard, griping pincers, and, moreover, are, at their extremeties, organs of respiration. And in this last particular our singularly armed warrior, by a quite revolutionary expedient, solves the problem which so much embarrassed our poor mollusc; how to breathe, in spite of the shell. To this he calmly replies: "I breathe through hand and foot. This great, this fatal difficulty of breathing, which would so surely overcome me, I overcome by the very same weapon with which I smite, the very same implement by which I seize and masticate my food."

The chief and most potent enemies of the Crustacæ, are the tempest and the rock. Little in the deep sea, they almost constantly lurk along shore in waiting for their prey. Often, as they lurk there waiting for the oyster to open and furnish them with a breakfast, a hard gale drives them from their ambush, and then their armor becomes their fatality. Hard, and destitute of elasticity, it receives the full and unmitigated shock of every collision; dashed upon the rocks, they leave it, if alive, only with broken weapons and rent armor. Happily for them, they, like the Oursin, can replace an organ, lost or mutilated. So well do they know that strange power, that they voluntarily shake off a claw, if confined by it. It would seem that Nature especially favors servants so useful. To counterbalance the infinite fecundity of other species, the crustacæ have an infinite power of absorption. And they are everywhere; on every coast; ubiquitous as the seas themselves. The Vultures, and other carrion birds, share with the crustacæ the essential office of health preservers. Let some large animal die, and, on the instant, the bird above, and the crab below and within, are at work to prevent it from polluting the atmosphere.

The Talitre, that small and skipping crab that we might almost mistake for an insect, burrows in the sands of the sandy shores. Let a tempest drive a quantity of Medusæ or other such prey upon the beach, and you will immediately see the sands all in motion, and myriads of crabs swarming, leaping, hungry, and apparently determined to clear away the spoil before the next flood tide.

Large, robust, and full of wiles, the great crabs are a very combative race. So highly are they gifted with the instinct of war that they even resort to noise in order to intimidate their enemies; advancing to the fight they clash their claws together with a noise like that of castanettes. Yet, they are very prudent when they have to do with a stronger enemy. I remember to have watched them from the top of a high rock, when the tide was out. But, high above them as I was, they perceived that they were watched, and speedily beat a retreat; the warriors hurrying sidelong, as is their wont, into their secure ambush. They resemble Achilles far less than Hannibal. When they feel that they are the stronger, they will attack both the living and the dead, and the helplessly wounded man may well dread them. It is related that, on some desert isle, several of Drake's sailors were attacked and devoured by these greedy creatures.

No living creature can fight them with equal weapons. The gigantic Poulpe who should enlace the smallest of the crab family, would do so at the risk of losing his antennæ, and the greediest of fish would not venture to swallow so hard a morsel.

When the Crustaceæ are large they are the tyrants and the terror of both land and sea; their impregnable armor enables them to attack everything. They would multiply to such an excess as to disturb the balance of living creatures, but that their armour itself is their great peril and destroyer. Hard and inelastic, it will not yield to the increasing growth of the animal and thus becomes its prison always, and at certain periods its torture.

To find, despite this solid wall, the means of breathing, it is obliged to place the organ of respiration in that very organ, the claw, which it most frequently loses. To allow for the growth of its interior substance, it is obliged--most perilous obligation!--to submit that the hard cuirass shell shall at times be discarded; that the creature shall have its seasons of _moulting_; that the eyes, and the claws, and the tentacles, which supply the place of lungs shall suffer with all the rest.

A strange and pitiful sight it is to see the Lobster writhing, twisting, struggling, to get out of its too confining armor. So violent is the struggle that he sometimes actually casts off his claws. Then he remains soft, weak, exhausted. In two or three days a raw shell covers the naked body; but the Crab does not so easily repair damages; it takes him much longer to renew his armor, and during that time he is the victim of all that previously were his unspared and unpitied prey. Even handed justice now becomes terrible to him. The victims now have their revenge; the strong is subjected to the law of the weak; falls, as a species, to their level, and pays full share in the great balance between Life and Death.

If one died but once in this world, there would be less of sadness, but every living thing must partially die daily; daily suffer moulting, that partial death which is essential to the continuance of life. Hence, a weakness and a melancholy to which we do not readily confess. But what is to be done? The bird in its moulting time is sad and silent; still more sad is the poor snake when it casts its skin. We, also, in every month, every day, every instant, are parting with portions of our living frame, but as gently as constantly, and only feel weakened, in those moments of dreamy melancholy, when the vital flame is weakened, that it may become stronger and more vivid.

How far more terrible it must be for the creature whose whole external frame work must be rent asunder and cast off. It is weak, timorous, crushed;--at the mercy of the first comer.

There are crustacæ of the fresh water that must thus partially die a score of times in every two months. Others (the crustacean suckers) succumb to this terrible operation, are unable to renew their armor, and lose all power. So to speak, they resign their piratical commission, and, coward-like, take shelter in the viscera of the larger animals, which, in spite of themselves, have to forage for them and to feed them.

The insect in its Chrysalis seems utterly to forget itself, not only does it not suffer, but it even seems to enjoy that semblance of death, that unconscious life, which the infant enjoys in its warm cradle. But the crustacæ, in their moulting time, see themselves and feel themselves as they are, suddenly hurled from energetic and terrible life and power to the most complete impotency. They are alarmed, helpless, lost, and can but creep under some sheltering stone, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, feeling nothing but the terror of the coming foe and the unpitied death. Never having encountered terrible foe, or even serious obstacle, and relieved from all necessity of industry by their potent armor, they no sooner lose that than they find themselves utterly without resource. Each might protect the other, but they are all defenceless at the same time. Yet it is said that, in certain species, the male does strive to protect the female, and that if we take one we take both.

That terrible necessity of moulting, and the eager research of man, more and more lord of the shores, and the extinction of the old species that afforded them such abounding alimentation, have necessarily kept down the increase of the crustaceæ. Even the Poulpe which, being good for nothing, is neither hunted after nor eaten, has considerably decreased in number. How much more so, then, the crustaceæ whose flesh is so excellent and so coveted by all creatures. They actually seem to be aware of this. The weaker among them resort to the grossest little rogueries to protect themselves; they are ingenious, intriguing. This latter epithet is the true one; they really resemble intriguers who, without visible means, contrive to support themselves upon the means of others. A kind of bastards, neither quite fish, nor quite flesh, they make increment alike of the living, the dying and the dead; occasionally even of land animals.

The Oxystome makes himself a kind of miser, and thieves by night; the Birgus at nightfall quits the sea on a marauding expedition, and, for want of better, even ascends the cocoa tree and eats the fruit. The Dromios disguise themselves, and Bernard the Hermit, unable to harden his exterior, seizes a Mollusc, devours the body, and clothes himself in the shell. Thus fitted out, he prowls at evening in search of food, and we detect the furtive pilgrim by the noise which he cannot avoid making as he halts and staggers along, under the load of his ill acquired and ill fitting armor.

Others, at most times, but especially in the winter, seek the land, and burrow. Perhaps they would change their nature altogether and become insects, were the sea not so dear to them. As once in every year the twelve tribes of Israel were wont to wend their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Tabernacles, there are certain shores to which these faithful children of the sea repair to pay her their homage and to consign to her tender care their eggs, thus recommending their offspring to her who nursed their ancestry.