196 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



threatening, and this, too, while in full and masterly retreat. Each 

 seems, as it might be, a Liliputian Falstaff ; and, if rendered in Homeric 

 strain, Gelasimus vocans would signify the " laughter-provoking chal- 

 lenger." Indeed, Gelasimus never sees anybody, whether great or 

 small, but forth he hurls his challenge in pantomime, for up goes that 

 threatening huge member, so that its owner appears to be habitually 

 bent on something high-handed. As this swaying of the great fiddle- 

 like claw seems to start and direct or animate the retreat, it is ludi- 

 crously suggestive of a musical conductor beating time by swaying a 

 bass-viol instead of his hdton^ the effect of his eccentricity being to 

 cause a stampede of all the fiddlers. This crab excavates holes in the 

 earth, a male and a female occupying one hole. Into this retreat it re- 

 tires with astonishing celerity when alarmed, and, having gained its 

 hole, it literally barricades the entrance, by turning round and closing 

 it up with its big hand, leaving just room enough for the little keen 

 eyes to keep a sharp lookout at whatever may be j^assing. In these 

 burrov*s they spend the winter, probably in hibernation. More than 

 once, when pursuing the fiddler who, with fiddle aloft, ran swiftly, 

 has the writer had the luxury of a slip and fall on the slimy clay of 

 Fiddler Town, as we called a certain place in the salt-meadows, where 

 these fiddlers lived. Those mishaps were really enjoyable — that is, to 

 those who looked on. 



There is a group of crabs which has a curious habit, made neces- 

 sary on account of the unprotected condition of the hinder part of 



Fig. 4. 



Hermit-Ckab and Actijtea. 



their bodies. Tliis is entirely naked ; hence these crabs occupy the 

 empty shells of sea-snails, winkles, and such univalves. It is called the 

 hermit-crab, or Pagicrus^ by the systematists, Fig. 4. The most common 

 species on the Atlantic coast is the little hermit — Pa gurus Ion gicar pus, 

 A pair of nippers at the extremity of the tail, or raked abdomen, en- 



