250 CRAB-POND. 



of the mud, as we should by using the finger and 

 thumb. At very short intervals, one or the other 

 clav^r picks up some little morsel, — often so small 

 that the spectator can only guess its presence by 

 the action, — -and carries it to the mouth with so easy, 

 so human-like a motion, that I have been greatly 

 pleased with it; exactly like a person feeding him- 

 self with his fingers. That the eyes are not the 

 guides to the situation of the morsels, I feel assured, 

 for they are placed high up on the forehead, and 

 point upwards ; and moreover, I have repeatedly seen 

 the claws feel, and even pick up, from U7ider the body. 

 I have watched the progress of the Crab, too, to 

 some morsel that I had thrown in ; no notice was 

 taken of it, until the claw touched it, as it were, 

 accidentally, in feeling round and round ; but the 

 instant it was touched it was conveyed to the mouth. 

 That the eyes do occasionally aid in the search is 

 apparent ; but then the proceeding is different. The 

 Crab leaps suddenly upon the object, and huddles, so 

 to speak, over it, as if afraid of its getting away. In 

 this, and in other actions, there is much resemblance 

 to Spiders. I have sometimes thrown down to the 

 Crabs crumbs of bread, or little bits of meat, to ob- 

 serve their actions : if the piece be too large to be at 

 once transferred to the mouth, it is held with one 

 claw, while the other detaches morsels from it, and 

 conveys them to the mouth ; just as I have seen a 

 little pelagic Swimming-crab {Lupa) dismember a 

 shrimp that he had caught, holding it in one claw, 

 and picking it to pieces and feeding himself with the 

 other. The Flat-crabs eat slowly : a fragment as 



