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the bottom away from the weeds, and, having succeeded, much to my surprise, he began an unexpected caper. After, working his claws and tail violently for some time we saw his purpose, for in this clear water he made a thick mud-cloud over six inches high and four or five inches wide. Instantly he got into the middle of it, and there he stood with outstretched arms, hoping and waiting for the coming of the prawns. But they seemed aware of his presence, and appeared to know that tricks like this had been played before for the capture of prawns; for they approached cautiously with extended feelers, and, after probing the cloud for a time, evidently found their enemy, and quickly passed on without entering the trap.

Soon the cloud subsided, and the crab again appeared, and dimly seeing the retreating forms of the prawns, darted after them, but again without success. These efforts seemed to be too much for the poor hungry one, who soon retreated to his old cover.

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VELVET SWIMMING CRAB. These live in the sea, close on the outside of Carcinus mœnas, and, being night feeders, commit all their depredations on their neighbors in the dark.

Full-grown specimens are seldom above three inches across the back. They are rarely found inside ordinary low water spring tides or beyond half a mile from shore.

They are the most fierce and cruel of all the smaller crabs; and, with their red eyes, quick sight and red and blue markings, impress most of the young fisher-folk with the fear that there is poison in their bite. Hence their common name is the stinging crab; but their nip will lacerate delicate hands only. Yet they are desperate characters, and do not hesitate to attack and

kill the great crab, Cancer pagurus, a creature which is nearly one hundred times their own weight, and which, if it could get hold of them, would grind them to powder; but theirs is only another simile of Man and the Whale, as may be seen at any time under certain conditions.

fishing for

It is customary, when great crabs, for the fishermen to deliver them to buyers about once in the week.

During the interval the crabs are generally kept in a large wicker store at the bottom of the sea. If it is sandy there, they are safe from most enemies; but if the bottom is rough, these pertinent rascals are sure to be found there, and woe betide Cancer pagurus, for, when night comes, they will instantly attack him in the eyes, and so active and constant are they that the great crab has no chance with them; finally, they will actually eat his eyes out, and death will ensue. What follows may be easily guessed. A dead lion is not a more welcome treat to the jackal of the desert than a large crab is to this fraternity.

When last at Polperro I noticed that the fishermen were forced to float their crab stores in the surface of the sea to avoid these pests. At Mevagissey the fishermen are obliged to do the

same.

By day the velvet swimming crabs live in the shelter of the rocks and under loose stones, but with night they explore the whole neighborhood, and when the occasion offers, they are violent and savage hunters. If food is scarce they delight in the crab and lobster pots of the fishermen, where they can have abundance of rough matter for the effort of eating it; but they are sure to be up and away (escaping between the rods) before the morning light, ere the fisherman comes to see the night's results, for they are equal to almost any emergency in fighting life's battle.

Gosse kept a specimen of these crea tures in his aquarium; and describes him as "a fit representative of those giants that nursery tradition tells of as infesting Cambria and Cornwall in Good King Arthur's days. Gloomy, grim, strong, ferocious, crafty and cruel, he would squat in his obscure lair watching for the unsuspecting denizens of the tank to stray near; or would now and again rush out and seize them with fatal precision. As the Giant Grim of old spared not ordinary-sized men for any sympathy of race, so our giant crab had no respect for lesser crabs, except a taste for their flesh. This was torn off and eaten with gusto, while the rest of the animal was wrenched limb from limb with savage wantonness, and the fragments scattered in front of his cave."

Their enemies are probably the nursehound of Couch, the Great Northern diver, which I have seen feeding on them for months together, and also the otter. The evidence of the latter being in this list came in rather an indirect manner. I once kept two young otters, and on being fed with ordinary fresh fish they gave me no little anxiety, for they did not thrive nor relish their food satisfactorily. In considering the habits and life history of their parents, it struck me that they must certainly come in contact with our shore crabs, and possibly eat them, or give them as food to their young. In trying the experiment with a batch (among them was the Portunus) which I presented to these youngsters, the sight was something to be remembered, for they almost jumped out of the barrel to secure them and ate them in a few seconds. With this change of food I had no more trouble with my charge, and I think this is fair evidence that the otter is an enemy of Portunus puber.

Their mimicry is seen in many forms,

See Gosse's Aquarium, p. 195; also White's British Crustacea, p. 48.

and is used more as a mask to protect them when resting by day than as a shield in the darkness, for this in their working hours must generally cover them.

Its first phase is seen in some of the younger crabs, which sometimes venture a little above low water spring tides in company with Carcinus mœnas. These put on an indefinite brownish hue, blending well with the color of their neighbors; no pink or blue shades are seen, and even their eyes lack the pertinent red lustre seen in their fellows of the same size lying further out, where other hues preponderate.

The larger forms, found under the stones at extreme low water, where zoophytes and other life give a pinkish hue to their cover, and where dark pebbles with a blue shade cover the bottom, color all their joints and interstices red, and their claws black or blue.

The whole body has a plush covering of a velvet consistence which gives the crab its name. This, to suit their environment, can be modified into light drab or brown, and when darker colors are still wanting the plush is often rubbed off the back in places, showing their dark form and giving them a color suitable to their surroundings.

But their greatest mimicry seems to be on the first sight of the human form. No doubt they are much frightened at the appearance of this burly, beakfaced, glaring animal, a creature more than a thousand times their size and with incomprehensible strength.

A malformed giant visiting the earth from one of the planets could not be more terrifying to us than man seems to be to these creatures. Their first act is to fight him or feign death in his presence. I have more than once watched their actions when a large stone had been quietly lifted off their resting place. Instantly they are either glaring at the intruder with their nip

pers up for a fight, or they lie as quiet as the pebbles around them without moving a muscle. If taken in the hand they will sometimes allow their claws to be placed in any form without resistance, and even if put on the beach will keep their claws in the same form, for a considerable time, as if they were really dead among the weeds; and yet all the while, from the angle of their eyes, it can be seen that they are intently watching their visitor.

The females in this species, unlike most other crabs, are about the same size as the males, and the propagation of the race is continued much on the same lines as that of the shore crab, only in a little deeper water; the males visiting the females in their sheltered homes and protecting them from their enemies when passing through the weakness and utter helplessness of exuviation.

I will now consider the habits and mimicry of Cancer pagurus, or the

GREAT CRAB.

Although this creature is found everywhere on the rough sea bottom near the British Isles, it is a question if such extremes of matured life can be found connected with any animal forms without an apparent cause, for here we have dwarf and colossal life on the broadest lines yearly perpetuated as extremes of the race.

I have been led to believe that the finest crabs exist between Dartmouth in Devon and the Lizard headland in Cornwall, where males are often known to reach thirteen and fourteen pounds weight, and where they are only called half-crabs when under eight inches across the back; whereas on most other parts of the British Isles crabs two or three pounds weight and six or seven inches across the back are considered large. It would be interesting to know why this is. It can scarcely be from LIVING AGE. VOL. VIII. 399

climatic causes, as the Land's End and Scilly Isles on the one hand and the shores of the English Channel on the other ought to have a water temperature not much unlike this district. Nor can it be from the nature of the sea bottom, for rough grounds suitable for these creatures exist both to the east and the west of this Land of the Giants.

The facts point to some kind of food as being the cause of the massive size of these creatures; and, therefore, I think it would be worth while for some county council, or even the Government, to send an expert to look up this question. If the real tid-bits cannot be discovered, there is the crossing of the breeds to fall back on; and if results come out as some other mixing of superior with inferior races has done, an incalculable benefit will be conferred on the crab fisheries of Britain.

Like crabs generally, the great crab is fond of secrecy, and, being a night feeder, it usually hides in caverns and crevices or under the sands by day, and hunts or lies in wait for its prey by night. Not being nimble in its movements, its captures are achieved more by feats of strategy and cunning than by activity. Its powers of smell and eyesight are fairly good, and it prefers fresh, red-colored fish as food, such as the red gurnard, red mullets and bream, or the strongly perfumed flesh of the whitehound shark. Evidently one of its habits when on the war-path is to stand quiet in the night with extended arms and open nippers, in the shadow of some great rock or group of tall sea-weeds, and then grip at all comers. If this scheme fails, it seeks the sands and buries itself there, with the exception of its eyes and the tips of its nippers; here it awaits the moving of soles, plaice and other sand-wandering life. That these crabs are apt at this work, may be seen on their first capture by

man, for they will often stand in this attitude for ten minutes together, awaiting the approach of the human hand.

After they have revelled in the food of our summer seas, in the autumn a mass of red matter gathers in the carapace of the females, which is the material for a new shell, or the substance to be used in the formation of eggs if these are not actually in existence. With the first autumn storms the whole family divides into two parts; the maternal or egg-bearing section retiring into deep water where they again divide; the younger forms, when some three or four miles from land, going deep under the sands and hybernating there until the spring; while the older members continue the journey to a much greater distance, until they find deep water out of reach of the storms of winter. Here they rest without burying themselves very deep, as the trawler, when fishing by night, often catches numbers of them. Through the winter, by a beautiful process, the eggs, varying from one to two millions in number, are drawn out of the body by means of a pouch, and attached to the stems and filaments under the flap or tail.

How long they remain in this position it is difficult to say. As the bulk of the crabs return unburthened to their old haunts in May and June, it seems certain that their eggs must have been held in situ by the parent until about this date. And it further seems probable that, when developed, the larva is left at various depths in the sand, as active larval forms are not plentiful in the surface of the sea off the coasts until July and August. On the other hand the second division of these females, which have red matter in them for a new carapace, and which are the younger forms of the race, retire, protected and guarded by the males, to the rocks and vast reefs, which abound

off the coasts, and in their caverns and crevices in the spring pass through the process of exuviation and often congress.

It is from this section that the fishermen draw their early supplies ere the older females return from the deep sea spawning grounds.

It may not be out of place to remark here that exuviation is not absolutely a yearly act. In the younger forms it is passed through as often as they can find food to supply nature's conditions, which, in some cases, may be several times in a year; neither does congress always takes place at the time of exuviation, as it is often seen in other phases of life. Mimicry in these creatures is an interesting study.

Their enemies are all the large skates existing on the coasts, with the Octopus vulgaris and the nursehound sharks; while the sea breams and wrasse delight in feeding on the remains of their slaughter.

The skates hunt them with great energy, and with their tough snouts rout them out of the crevices of the rocks, and after crushing them devour them whole. I have seen as ruany as five of these crabs in the stomach of one skate.

The octopus also feeds on them ravenously, and, but for their sharp nippers, would scarcely look for any other food. I have more than once seen such cuttles with their arms bitten clean off, which, no doubt, was the result of battling with these crabs. The nursehound also feeds on the smaller forms. To fight the battle of life unseen by their enemies is the one great purpose of these creatures; hence mimicry of rather a high order is quickly assumed by them. Thus when they are living among the dark olive laminarian seaweeds, a dark chocolate color is put on, which so quietly blends with these weeds that their forms cannot be distinguished among these dark olive con

ditions; while in deeper water on the low rocks and brown sands they cover themselves with brown hues so that it is difficult even for sharp eyes to distinguish them from their surroundings. Besides this they have another protection; being night feeders, all crabs who, with the morning light, find themselves on the sands, instantly bury themselves. This fact is known to the shore trawlers, who, while fishing by day on certain grounds, will scarcely find a crab; yet, when trawling on the same sands by night, will catch them in great numbers.

Then they have the wonderful trick of assuming death in difficulties. Let man or their other enemies come upon them, however suddenly, they will instantly either fight, or mimic the departed; and so persistent are they in this mode of deception that if conditions do not change they will continue in this state until death becomes a reality.

My next remarks will be on Homarus vulgaris, or the

LOBSTERS.

These exist on our coasts from the lowest spring tides out to thirty-five and forty fathoms of water, which, in some instances, may be five or more miles from land. Their home is always in sheltered positions. Near the shore by day they live in holes or caverns, or under large stones with a free exit, and are most plentiful where rocks and sands are in close proximity; when this clear, sandy expanse in the twilight or moonlight can be used as fencing and hunting ground, as pleasure or hunger may preponderate, for they are the most active and warlike of all our large crabs.

That fencing is a pastime among lobsters I have no doubt, from some little experience I have had with them. Once I found a lobster near low water in a pool some nine feet long by six wide,

having a rough bottom and eight or ten inches of water on it with a cavern at each end. Although I was armed with a crab-hook or iron gaff about three feet long, the extreme darting and fencing of the lobster were too much for me to grapple with. When in the deeper cavern I found it could see me through the water as plainly as I could see it; so that here the better constructed eyes of the Genus Homo had no advantage over the rough, hard, stalk eyes of the crustacean; and as I could not get to gaff across it, every effort I made was evaded; at last, however, by mere vigorous and energetic gaffing, I made the cavern so uncomfortable for the lobster that, like a lightning flash it darted between my legs and into the lesser cavern. Here the same game went on and with like results; for, in a moment, he was again between my legs and back into his old haunt. Finally, becoming tired of gaffing and missing (for its fencing was perfect, and could not have been achieved without long practice), I declined to be beaten by a mere crustacean, and proceeded to bail out the pool. It was only by this effort that I eventually conquered it. And here I must confess that throughout the battle so deft, crafty and subtle were its actions that it was like fighting a being endowed with human intelligence.

I have further proof that they manifest a severe martial spirit in the sea when hunting for food. It is nothing uncommon for fishermen, when drawing up their traps in the morning, to find the large claw of another lobster in the pot beside the prisoner; and there have been instances when three large claws have been found together under the above conditions, and a lobster with one arm, as a prisoner, showing that in a recent fight the victor had lost one, and the vanquished both its arms. But these are only trifles compared with what the late Sir Isaac Coffin saw on

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