48 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



I witnessed between two taken from their shells. Selecting 

 them nearly equal in size, I drojiped them, " naked as their 

 mother bore them," into a glass vase of sea-water. They did 

 not seem comfortable, and carefully avoided each other. I 

 then placed one of the empty shells (first breaking off its 

 spiral point) between them, and at once the contest com- 

 menced. One made direct for the shell, poked into it 

 an inquiring claw, and having satisfied his cautious mind 

 that all was safe, slipped in his tail with ludicrous agility, 

 and, fastening on by his hooks, scuttled away, rejoicing. 

 He was not left long in undisturbed possession. His rival 

 approached with strictly dishonourable intentions ; and they 

 both walked round and round the vase, eyeing each other 

 with settled malignity, — like Charles Kean and Wigan in the 

 famous duel of the Gorsican Brothers. No words of mine 

 can describe our shouts of laughter at this ludicrous combat, 

 — one combatant uneasy about his unprotected rear, the 

 other sublimely awkward in his borrowed armour. For the 

 sake of distinctness, I will take a liberty with two actors' 

 names, and continue to designate our two crabs as Charles 

 Kean and Alfred Wigan. C. K., although the blacker, 

 larger, and stronger of the two, was at the disadvantage of 

 being out of his shell, and was slow in coming to close 

 quarters ; at last, after many hesitations, approaches, and 

 retreats, he made a rush behind, seized the shell in his 

 powerful grasp, while with his huge claw he haled Wigan 

 out, flung him discomfited aside, and popped his tail into the 

 shell Wigan looked piteous for a fcAV moments, but soon, 

 his "soul in arms and eager for the shell," he rushed upon 



