190 GIANT GRIMES EXPLOITS. 



treat. He was a fit representative of one of tliose giants 

 that nursery tradition tells of, as infesting Cambria 

 and Cornwall, "in good King Arthur's days." Gloomy 

 and grim, strong, ferocious, crafty and cruel^ he would 

 squat in his obscure lair, watching for the unsuspect- 

 ing tenants of the tank to stray near, or would now 

 and again rush out, and seize them with fatal force 

 and precision. As the Giants 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. I had two or three full-grown 

 Soldier Crabs [Pagurus hernliardus) ; themselves war- 

 riors of no mean prowess ; two, at least, of these fell 

 a prey to the fierce Fiddler. His manner of pro- 

 ceeding was regular and methodical. Grasping the 

 unthinking Soldier by the thorax, and crushing it so 

 as to paralyse the creature, he dragged the body out 

 of the protecting shell. The soft, plump abdomen 

 was the honne houche; 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. 



I saw him one day snap at a Prawn, but the elegant 

 and agile animal was much too quick to be so caught : 

 with a flap of its tail it shot away backward, and 

 laughed its enemy to scorn. 



There was a large Sea-worm, however [Nereis pela- 

 gica)^ a many-footed, Centipede-like creature, some 

 seven inches long, that fared worse. The Fiddler 

 seized the worm in one powerful claw, and began to 

 gnaw it up as we do a radish : the writhings of the 

 victim interrupted the epicure's enjoyment ; he there- 



