HERMIT CRABS 79 



and goes hunting about everywhere for some 

 other shell into which he can tuck it. After a 

 while, perhaps, he finds that of a periwinkle. 

 It is not of much use, of course, for it is so 

 small that he can only get just the tip of his 

 tail into it. Still, it is better than nothing, and 

 he goes crawling about with the periwinkle shell 

 on the end of his tail, like a thimble on the tip 

 of one's finger, in search of a bigger one. By- 

 and-by he discovers one. Then he whips his 

 tail out of the old shell and into the new one 

 so quickly that you can hardly see how he does 

 it, and goes off to look for a bigger .shell still. 

 And in this way he will change his dwelling 

 perhaps half-a-dozen times before he is really 

 satisfied. 



Sometimes you may find a hermit crab with 

 a sea anemone fastened to the edge of the shell 

 in which he is living. That seems strange, 

 doesn't it, when you remember how terribly 

 afraid the little animal is of anemones. But in 

 such a case the anemone never interferes with 

 the hermit crab, and the crab never interferes 

 with the anemone, while both of them benefit 

 by the arrangement. The crab benefits, because 

 no fish will ever touch him so long as an 

 anemone is attached to his whelk-shell. There 

 are plenty of fishes which would be quite ready 

 to gobble him up, whelk-shell and all, if it were 

 not for this creature. But fishes know quite 



