46 LOCH C RERAN. 



eggs of the little crustacean, and in one or two instances 

 they were distinctly eyed. Does this little fellow really 

 carry them about until hatched, and are these minute 

 creatures even more highly organised and better provided 

 than the large crabs and lobsters, obliged to carry their 

 ova in multitudes open under their tail flap ; while the 

 mysis has a select few only, in a secure sac. One 

 peculiarity about this huge appendage is, that it is attached 

 to the chest under the front legs, which close around it, 

 in place of being under the abdomen, as in the larger 

 Crustacea ! 



We were recently carrying out a slaughter of the by 

 no means innocent crabs, whose love for oysters clashed 

 with our idea of the fitness of things. We were on the 

 point of crushing an ordinary-sized common looking 

 fellow (C. moenas) along with his companions, when a 

 peculiar condition of the abdomen attracted attention. 

 The crab could not have been more than a year old at 

 the outside, and yet it had quite a number of very large 

 barnacles securely seated on its carapace, and several 

 smaller ones on the joints of the legs, on which there 

 were also prominent the small green fronds of an ulva. 

 But the poor fellow's troubles did not end here ; under 

 the abdomen, as already suggested, there was a peculiar 

 protuberance forcing it open as if it were heavy wiih 

 spawn ; and this turned out to be two mussels, one of 

 several months' growth, the other smaller, well secured 

 by their byssi, and so placed as to force the false legs 

 apart and askew ! Yet the crab looked healthy and 

 active, while all its sedentary parasites seemed equally so. 



What do we know of the motives of the lower animals 

 after all, and is not the life of some of the commoner 

 creatures around us much more complicated and difficult 



