Some Friends in Armor 87 



there is maintained a just proportion of life through 

 the ferocious but necessary medium of the stomach, and 

 forgetting that here Is but an operation of a benevolent 

 law which determines the survival of the devourer to be 

 in direct dependence on the unfitness of the devoured, 

 I look upon this rapacious butchery with horror. 



A dreadful fascination holds me, and with rapidly 

 beating pulse I lean far over the rail. The movement, 

 however, betrays my presence, and the animal on per- 

 ceiving me takes alarm and slinks away, leaving in its 

 trail an inky cloud. 



My attention is now drawn toward a spot near by 

 a small clump of mussels, where in the uncertain haze 

 caused by the retreating squid I catch now and then the 

 fleeting glimpse of the agitated movements of a young 

 moon snail's shell. At once I recognize the object of 

 my early visit to the seashore. It is the little hermit 

 crab {Pagiiriis longicarpus) . 



Her-^ he comes, now ! Crawling actively over the 

 bottom, he pauses from time to time and scrapes the 

 sand in search of a morsel of food. From his busy 

 claws comes the glint of the morning sunshine, and on 

 the texture of those members there is a delicate iri- 

 descence produced by the diffraction of light. Soon he 

 spies a dilapidated whelk shell half burled in the silt, 

 and cautiously advances toward it. Its size Is nearly 

 equal to the one he carries; its decrepit condition, its 

 calcareous incrustations, to which small seaweeds have 

 anchored themselves, show that. several summers have 

 passed since it was instinct with life. After a prelim- 

 inary frisk with his long threadlike feelers, he quickly 

 rolls it over several times, giving the exterior a rapid, 



