FLAT-CRABS. 187 



exactly, but called so by courtesy, something in fact 

 between both. My dredger's hauls are always sure 

 to contain, creeping in the tangled thickets of Lao- 

 medea, Antennularia, and other of the flexible Polyps, 

 or playing at bo-peep from the interstices of the Serpula 

 masses, numerous specimens of a tiny Grab, 3 with a 

 circular flat shell, no bigger than a split-pea, large wide 

 claws, and very long antennae, like two hairs. They 

 are of various colours, sometimes pure white, sometimes 

 chocolate-brown, and often clouded with different hues. 

 Minute as they are, they are not despised by great 

 fishes ; for the heavy-sided, clumsy-headed cods, that 

 occupy so large an area on the fishmonger's slab, are 

 often found to have their stomachs packed full with 

 these little Crabs ; which doubtless the glutton picks 

 off one by one, enjoying the taste of the savoury atom 

 as it rolls over his fat fleshy tongue. 



But we may much more easily procure specimens of 

 his bigger brother, the Shaggy Flat-crab, 2 which abounds 

 under nearly every flat stone at low- water on Babbi- 

 cornbe beach, and indeed almost everywhere else, under 

 the like conditions. He is a curious subject, though 

 far from attractive as to his personnel, for he is, I regret 

 to say, of irreclairnably dirty habits. You never find 



1 Porcellana longicornis. 



2 Porcellana platycheles, represented by the central figure in Plate xxi. 



