THE HILL GRASSES 



575 



densely fringed claws, which, when folded 

 inwards, fit neatly into the margin of his 

 shell. His larger sized relative, the 

 Common Shore Crab, sometimes provides 

 us with an interesting case of degenera- 

 tion. It is nothing unusual to find one of 

 these crabs with a prominent rounded 

 growth rooted under the body. This is 

 actually a parasitic relation, called Saccu- 

 lina, who began life as a free-swimming 

 and promiseful larva, but who ultimately 

 settled upon the hapless crab, first within 

 its body and linally beneath its tail, to lead 

 a life of ease, without eyes, without limbs, 

 and without " nerves," but with a capacity 

 for absorbing nourishment at the expense 

 of its host. 



Certain kinds of crabs dress them- 

 selves up for protection. A perfect 

 example of this is Pisa, the masked 

 crab shown in the photograph. It has 

 a zoophyte growing out over its snout 

 and a living compound of tunicates spread 



upon its back, besides a thin coating 

 of sponge around its thighs, and sundry 

 objects on other parts of its body. 

 These are actually planted by the 

 crab itself, which has hooked hairs all 

 over its shell for holding securely the 

 various articles of clothing, animate and 

 inanimate. 



If we look carefully among the finer 

 seaweeds under the stones in the rock- 

 pools we may come across that grotesque 

 creation, the " No-body " Crab, Caprella, 

 clinging to the weed with its small legs, 

 and swinging about its thin body and 

 large arm claws mesmeric fashion. 



At the shore or in the country, whether 

 it be in water or out of it, almost any 

 stone we choose to turn over will pro- 

 vide us with some natural object worthy 

 of our attention, something worth carry- 

 ing home to have a better look at, no 

 matter how small or insignificant it may 

 seem. R. A. Staig. 



THE HILL GRASSES 



By MAUD U, CLARKE 

 With Photographs by HENRY IRVING 



IN regions as remote from each other as 

 are the high lands from the marshy 

 flats, we find the grass making pro- 

 portionate modifications of form. 



Every sappy particle, expressive of a 

 plant that absorbs abundant moisture, is 

 dried and shrunk into contracted fibre, 

 and consequently contracted bulk of form, 

 in the grass of the high land. The sum 

 total of the plant's days is spent in 

 ceaseless rush of wind and beneath un- 

 sheltered glare of light and heat. There 

 must l)e an equally unceasing effort to 

 maintain the supply for so great a toll 

 on the part of the grass. In every fine, 

 shaiply pointed blade of the hill grasses, 

 there is the expression of tense energy, 

 in strong contrast to the loose lush 

 fibre of the water grasses. Millions of 

 rounded blades have been fashioned as 



bayonets by sheer response of effort to 

 meet necessity. 



Apart from the moisture kept to a 

 certain extent existent at the roots by 

 the very density of the blades themselves 

 — assisted by the valuable peaty accumu- 

 lation that grass constructs just above the 

 roots — there is no assistance given by other 

 growths to maintain a moist temperature. 



For miles and miles our downlands are 

 devoid of any shelter of tree or shrub, 

 and the grass that hves there meets a 

 stern schoohng when one considers that 

 vegetation, in original principle, de- 

 manded two things for its well-being — 

 heat and moisture. Turning for a moment 

 from our downland to the tropical vegeta- 

 tion, we see it as an amazing giant, adding 

 complexity to complexity, and growth 

 to growth ; the enormous hfe-forces 



