SEASIDE: LODGINGS 83 
egos. These are cast up by the waves upon the sand, and 
in due course out creep the young crabs, which then cling 
to the rocks in thousands, but presently quit the water for 
any suitable places of protection on land, there acquiring 
strength to follow their mothers up the country. 
Patrick Browne says: ‘'The eggs are discharged from the 
body through two small round holes situated at the sides, 
and about the middle of the under shell; these are only 
large enough to admit one at a time, and, as they pass, they 
are entangled in the branched capillaments, with which the 
outer side of the apron is copiously supplied, to which they 
stick by means of their proper gluten, until the creatures 
reach the surf, where they wash ‘em all off, and then they 
begin to return back again to the mountains. It is re- 
markable that the bag or stomach of this creature changes 
its juices with the state of the body; and, while poor, is 
full of a black, bitter, disagreeable fluid, which diminishes 
as it fattens, and, at length, acquires a delicate rich 
flavour. About the month of July or August the crabs 
fatten again, and prepare for mouldering, filling up their 
burrow with dry grass, leaves, and abundance of other 
materials ; when the proper period comes, each retires to 
his hole, shuts up the passage, and remains quite inactive, 
until he gets rid of his old shell, and is fully provided with 
anew one. How long they continue m this state is un- 
certain, but the shell is first observed to burst both at the 
back and sides, to give a passage to the body, and it ex- 
tracts its limbs from all the other parts gradually after- 
ward. At this time the fish is in the richest state, and 
covered only by a tender membranous skin variegated with 
a multitude of reddish veins, but this hardens gradually 
after, and becomes soon a perfect shell like the former ; it 
is, however, remarkable that during this change there are 
some stony concretions always found in the bag, which 
waste and dissolve gradually, as the creature forms and 
perfects its new crust. A wonderful mechanism!’ A 
footnote remarks that the concretions, which are the well- 
known gastroliths or crab’s eyes, ‘are seldom under two or 
more than four.’ 
