More Friends in Armor 243 



ordinarily agile, for so alert is the aniiWal that, on find- 

 ing its way blocked, it will scamper down the nearest 

 of the neighboring burrows. Still, in spite of its 

 activity and the protection afforded by its place of 

 hiding, it is the prey of numerous enemies. These are 

 chiefly birds. The blue heron knows its habits well. 

 This long-billed and long-legged creature stands 

 motionless over the burrow waiting for the crab to 

 come out, and no sooner does the latter make its ap- 

 pearance than it is silently and swiftly snatched from 

 the ground and devoured. 



Although the fiddler crab seems not yet to have 

 learned how to escape its enemies of the land, it has an - 

 inheritance that stands it in good stead in avoiding its 

 foes of the sea. But dangers from that direction are 

 few. It is extremely infrequent that the crab finds itself 

 unexposed on the bottom. When it takes to the water 

 at all it is in some shallow pool or equally safe and shel- 

 tered place right at its door. When the tide rises over 

 its burrow it rarely ventures out, but remains secluded 

 within until after the flood subsides. The peculiar 

 marbled pattern on its back, together with the trans-/ 

 lucent appearance of the legs, make it barely distin- 

 guishable in the water from the sand on which it rests. 

 It has some facility in changing its hues from lighter to , , 

 darker tones, according to its situation, and almost 

 every color of the rainbow is represented on some part 

 of its body: from the bright red of the joints on the 

 legs to the soft blues and greejis and buffs that beau- 

 tify its back, the range of tints is so wide and their 

 nuances are so exquisitely delicate as to make it easily 

 among all brachyurans the most charming to the eye. 



