284 COMMON OBJECTS OF THE SHORE. 



around the stems of sea-weeds, or broken wood, 

 or on the projections of rocks, and fastening the 

 egg-shell firmly till the little inmate is ready for 

 its entrance into the waters, the waves may dash, 

 and the storm may roar ever so wildly, yet is it as 

 safe as if the sea were unstirred by a passing 

 breeze. 



Several crabs are to be seen on most parts of 

 our shore, and few are commoner than that kind 

 which, hermit-like, shuts itself up in a lonely cell, 

 and passes the greater part of life away from its 

 kind. Bernard the Hermit, or the Hermit-crab, 

 or, the Soldier-crab (Pagurus Bernhardus) , has a 

 peculiar structure. The hinder part of this animal 

 is destitute of the usual shelly crust in which most 

 of the species are enveloped, and in an early stage 

 of its existence, made conscious by its instinct of 

 its frail and unprotected condition, it takes pos- 

 session of some empty spiral or turbinated shell> 

 which it finds upon the beach, among whose coils 

 it can entwine itself, and putting forth its claws, 

 crawl along, like the snail, with its home upon its 

 back. Various shells may be seen thus inhabited ; 

 the crab, as it increases in size, setting forth in 

 quest of a larger dwelling, into which it enters 

 backwards, gradually winding itself in, and taking 

 hold of the end of the spire by means of a hook 

 attached to its tail. When the hermit-crab be- 

 comes larger, there are few common shells of size 

 enough to receive it, except that of the whelk j 

 but as these are usually plentiful, it is easy for it 

 to find a castle. So frequent on some coasts are 

 the hermit-crabs in the whelk-shell, that the writer 

 found thirteen specimens in the course of an hour's 

 walk on the beach of Dovor. The animal well 



