PUGNACITY OF CRABS. 155 



implacable ferocity, we do not find in the rrab. It 

 seems that this gallant chevalier, covered with a 

 thick cuirass, has his fits of anger, his joys after a 

 triumph, and is very sensible to the dishonour of 

 defeat. The most deadly combats will take place 

 between cmbs With their great claws they seize on 

 the hind-legs ot their adversaries, and the latter find 

 it no easy matter to withdraw their limbs safe and 

 sound. Where is the brigand that would take 

 pleasure in tearing his adversary limb from limb ? 

 Instances of such cruelty have occurred, but they are 

 happily rare. Procrustes does not often find imitators. 

 That which disgusts us is the nonchalance with which 

 crabs indulge themselves in this luxury, often carrying 

 oft* with them, as a trophy, a foot or a leg of their 

 enemy. They are so irascible, that, if we were to 

 put one of his own legs between a crab' s claws, he 

 Would attack it without perceiving that he was him- 

 self the aggressor, and would continue to pinch and 

 tear himself for a long time after he discovered the fact. 



It is not always against his own species that the 

 crab directs his attacks. With his great pincers and 

 his armour-like shell, which render him almost in 

 vulnerable, he is the doughty enemy of all the small 

 marine animals. 



But, as with the knights of old, that very armour is 

 sometimes the cause of danger to him. The growth 



