Now see what tricks, what cunning, are to be found in a weak animal, and learn not to imitate wicked doers.  The crab loves the flesh of the oyster; but, sheltered by its shell, a solid rampart with which nature has furnished its soft and delicate flesh, it is a difficult prey to seize.  Thus they call the oyster “sherd-hide.” ὀστρακόδερμος.  Thanks to the two shells with which it is enveloped, and which adapt themselves perfectly the one to the other, the claws of the crab are quite powerless.  What does he do?  When he sees it, sheltered from the wind, warming itself with pleasure, and half opening its shells to the sun, Fialon quotes Le Fontaine Le Rat et l’Huitre: Parmi tant d’huitres toutes closes, Une s’était ouverte, et baillant au soleil, Par un doux Zéphyr réjouie, Humait l’air, respirait était épanouie, Blanche, grasse, et d’un goût, à la voir, sans pareil. he secretly throws in a pebble, prevents them from closing, and takes by cunning what force had lost. Pliny ix. 48, says of the octopus:  “imposito lapillo extra corpus ne palpitatu ejiciatur:  ita securi grassantur, extrahuntque carnes.”  Such is the malice of these animals, deprived as they are of reason and of speech.  But I would that you should at once rival the crab in cunning and industry, and abstain from harming your neighbour; this animal is the image of him who craftily approaches his brother, takes advantage of his neighbour’s misfortunes, and finds his delight in other men’s troubles.  O copy not the damned!  Content yourself with your own lot.  Poverty, with what is necessary, is of more value in the eyes of the wise than all pleasures.