THE HERMIT-CRAB. 49 



ness for animals and children. Nay, do but watch a 

 man walking round his garden, pulling out this weed 

 and brushing off that insect, trimming this branch 

 and trailing up that cluster, — see what an incessant 

 pleasure it is to him. Now deepen this pleasure by 

 a scientific interest, which makes every detail of man- 

 ners, and every newly-observed point of structure, the 

 starting-point for fresh speculation, and you will form 

 a faint idea of what it is to keep pans and vases full 

 of animals. 



You doubtless know the Hermit-crab, by naturalists 

 named Pagurus? Unlike other crabs, who are con- 

 tent to live in their own solid shells, Pagurus lives in 

 the empty shell of some mollusc. He looks fiercely' 

 upon the world from out of this apparently inconve- 

 nient tub, the Diogenes of Crustacea, and wears an 

 expression of conscious yet defiant theft, as if he knew 

 the rightful owner of the shell, or his relatives, were 

 coming every moment to recover it, and he, for his 

 part, very much wished they might get it. All the 

 fore 23art of Pagurus, including his claws, is defended 

 by the solid armour of crabs. But his hind parts are 

 soft, covered only by a delicate membrane, in which 

 the anatomist, however, detects shell-plates in a rudi- 

 mentary condition. Now a gentleman so extremely 

 pugnacious, troubled with so tender a back and con- 

 tinuation, would fare ill in this combative world, had 

 he not some means of redressing the wrong done him 

 at birth ; accordingly he selects an empty shell of 

 convenient size, into which he pops his tender tail, 



D 



