THE CRUSTACEA 119 



and Inachus dorsettensis, the Scorpion Spider Crab. The Common 

 Spiny Spider Crab (Mai squinado) attains to 7 inches or 8 inches 

 across the carapace, and is largely used as food on the Continent, 

 and not infrequently in our English fishing ports. The carapace 

 of this Crab is thickly studded with stout spines, and the legs 

 are clothed with short bristles. The females are not so large as 

 the males, and are generally thickly covered with pieces of sea- 

 weed. The Four- horned Spider Crab is smaller, and has not so 

 many spines upon its body and legs as the Spiny Spider Crab, 

 but the floating spores of seaweeds readily attach themselves to its 

 body, so that little tufts of weed actually grow upon it. This 

 crab is slow in its movements, and may be found hiding under 

 stones, covered with a dense fringe of wrack- weed, on rocky shores. 



The Great Edible Crab and the Common Shore Crab are too 

 familiar to need any detailed description here, but the so-called 

 "Swimming Crabs" or "Fiddlers" are not perhaps quite so 

 well known. These crabs gain their two popular names from 

 their very characteristic movements, a half swimming, half 

 scrambling motion through the water, and the curious shape 

 of the last joint of the hind pair of legs, which is supposed to 

 have a vague resemblance to an ancient viol or fiddle ; these legs 

 are worked up and down with great agility when the creature 

 moves through the water. On the coast of France it goes by the 

 name of Le Crabe enrage, from its readiness to show fight. The 

 claws are sharp- pointed and well developed. The female carries 

 her great mass of eggs attached to special limbs on the under 

 side of her triangular tail. The Velvet Fiddler Crab (Portunus 

 puber) is a very handsome crab, about 4 inches in length, with 

 the knobs and spines on the body and legs marked with dark blue 

 and white, while the carapace is covered with a velvet-like surface 

 of close, fine hairs. Henslow's Swimming Crab (PolyUus Henslowii) 

 is a truly pelagic or open-sea Crustacean, being found swimming 

 on the surface of the sea at a very considerable distance from 

 the coast. 



A most singular-looking crab is the Masked Crab (Corystes 

 cassivelaunus), which gains its popular name from the curious 

 grooves or depressions on the oval carapace, that look rather like 

 a queer mask or human face. The sexes differ so much in appear- 

 ance that they have been described as separate species; When 



