THE SEASHORE 



173 



and are often cast up on the shore. In the fresh bunches which 

 have been torn off the rocks by the storm the yellowish yolk of 

 the eggs can be seen shining through the chaffy capsules. In 

 those from which the surviving embryos have been hatched it 

 is easy to find the door of escape. 



There is no finer field than the shore area for the study of 

 fitness. Everywhere we see temporary adjustments or permanent 

 adaptations of structure and habit 

 which secure for their possessors a 

 firmer foothold, a more comfortable 

 subsistence, a longer life, a larger 

 family, or what not. Here a crab 

 masks its bad reputation for that 

 it has something corresponding to 

 this we cannot doubt under a 

 cloak of sea-weed which it fixes 

 to its carapace; there a starfish 

 escapes from its captor by sur- 

 rendering one of its arms, having, 

 in spite of its utter brainlessness, 



Somehow learned that it is better FlG . g 7 .-A sand- crab (Hyas araneus\ 



that one member should perish 

 than that the whole life should be 

 lost ; the hermit-crab which has 

 had its claw badly damaged throws 

 off the injured limb always across 

 one line near the base the so- 

 called " breaking- joint," and 



then regenerates the whole, as the starfish does its arm ; the 

 sandhopper " feigns death " ; the cuttle-fish throws dust in its 

 enemies' eyes, as it were, by a discharge from its ink-bag ; the 

 flat-fish assumes the tint of the patch of sand on the floor of the 

 pool in which - it lies. And thus one might continue through 

 hundreds of instances. 



Hints as to Shore Excursions. An account of many of the 

 common shore animals, and suggestions as to the ways in which 

 they may be profitably used in school Nature Study, will be found 



showing a growth of seaweed on the 

 back of its shell. This forms a useful 

 disguise, which the crab apparently 

 attaches to itself, as it were planting 

 a garden on its back. The device is a 

 far-off hint of "the walking wood of 

 Birnam " and similar tricks in human 

 history. 



