PROTECTIVE PERIL bel 
of the chelipeds are almost the only smooth part about it. 
It is said by Stalio to be sensitive to changes of tempera- 
ture, and at any increase of cold to crouch closely in the 
crevices of the rocks, but as he also says that its habitat 
is at a depth of thirty to forty fathoms, it is not easy to 
understand how this valetudinarian shrinking has been 
ascertained. ‘The crab is only about two inches long, and 
according to Herbst is commonly covered with worm-tubes, 
corals, algze, and mud, to such an extent that it is scarcely 
to be recognised or to be taken for a living creature. 
Chionecétes, Kroyer, 1838, is a northern genus, with 
a name meaning ‘the snow-dweller,’ founded for the 
Greenland species Chionecetes opilio, which, according to 
Professor 8. I. Smith, is taken rarely in the deep water 
off the New England coast. ‘It is,’ he says, ‘one of the 
largest arctic crabs, and occasionally attains gigantic pro- 
portions.’ In the largest specimen that he examined the 
span of the walking-legs was two feet eight inches. The 
specimen figured by Kréyer in Gaimard’s voyages was, he 
says, even somewhat larger, but though the figure occupies 
the whole extent of the folio plate, I do not find that even 
with the second pair of legs which are the longest or with 
the third pair which are inserted at the broadest part of 
the carapace could it span more than twenty-eight inches. 
Antibima Smithu, M‘Leay, is a South African species 
which Krauss observed in its native haunts on the per- 
pendicular wave-lashed cliffs of the headland at Natal. 
Its legs are powerful and have the terminal joint bent into 
a strong hook by which the crab can fasten on to the pores 
of the rock. Its body is rounded off and has a very hard 
horny shell well adapted to resist the continual beating 
upon it of the surf. Among the bright and dark green 
alow, and coloured like them, it sits almost completely 
motionless and lets its food be floated to it by the ever- 
moving sea. When Krauss wished to take some speci- 
mens away from their dangerous position, they clung so 
tight that he had to use considerable force to disengage 
them, and was in consequence several times overtaken by 
the returning waves before he could effect his purpose. It 
