CRABS. 61 



research made in vain. We have obtained very large 

 numbers of a very pretty little Crab scarcely as large 

 as a coffee-bean {Porcellana longicornis) in this way. 

 This little creature is closely allied to P. i^latycheleB, 

 found abundantly on the southern coast of Devon. 

 He delights to dwell like a sort of " Dirty DicJc " of 

 crustacean life in a mud hovel of his own scooping, 

 working his way beneath stones which appear close 

 enough to the bottom to make a crab-biscuit of him. 

 Catch him, when or how you will, he is always like an 

 elfish brick-maker, condemned to make bricks without 

 straw, and debarred the privilege of washing. His 

 jacket and trousers are begrimed with red dust, and his 

 queer little face peers out at you, like that of an Indian 

 idol smeared with war-paint. ISTature has, however, 

 endowed him with brush-bearing feet, with which he 

 from time to time dusts his own suit ; but he remains 

 a rather dusty, grimy, little fellow after all, and we 

 cannot help thinking that the treatment prescribed 

 by Mr. Dick, for David Copperfield, would greatly 

 benefit his personal appearance. Xatiu:e appears, when 

 modelling the forms of the endless types of curious 

 crustacean life with which the Southern and Eastern 

 seas abound, to have given free scope to a love for 

 marvellous quaintness and oddity of contour. The 

 coasts of Japan furnish us with examples of Crab life 

 so hideously grotesque, that nothing short of seeing a 



