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hooks they could scarcely exhibit more intelligence and artistic 
taste than are shown by these Spider Crabs in disguising their 
natural beauty. This is the more remarkable because their eyes are 
so situated and mounted that a very limited portion of their decorated 
surfaces can be brought within the field of vision. However, some 
other sense probably comes in to assure them that a satisfactory 
arrangement of fal-de-rals has been effected ; for when a specimen 
decked out with red weeds is placed in a tank where only green 
weeds grow, the red is soon stripped off and replaced by green. 
Some species decorate both carapace and limbs, some the limbs 
only or chiefly ; but in no species with which I am acquainted is any 
attempt made to improve the natural condition of the under surface, 
except the broad abdomen of the females when it is distended by’ 
ova, but it has then ceased to be a part of the under surface, and 
needs disguising. 
‘The specimens submitted for your inspection were not set up with 
a view to this paper, but have been more or less scraped and scrubbed 
to show the crustacean pure and simple ; one or two, however, have 
not been so carefully cleaned, and one is in full “ war paint.” 
Macropodia rostratus is by far the most common of the spider 
crabs of this district, and comes up in profusion, its long legs 
entangled in the meshes of every trammel-net that is shot. The 
terminal joint of the smaller limbs is slender, curved, and flattened, 
the lower edge with a dense fringe of short hairs, and is habitually 
folded up close against the next joint, so that, for holding tenaciously 
to the finer weeds among which it appears to get a living, these are 
as useful as the pincer-claws or che/e. So tightly do they hold by 
this means that it is difficult to dislodge a specimen from a net 
without causing it to drop several of its legs. This act is performed 
on the most voluntary principle, so that only a small percentage of 
those obtained are perfect. These slender legs are in this species 
sparingly clothed with stiff long hairs, but along the upper surface at 
regular intervals are other hairs, which are curved in such fashion 
that the tips as well as the roots are in contact with the crust. 
All over the crab’s back (carapace) are a large number of similar 
hooked hairs, and it is sufficient that the crab should take a small 
length of weed and draw it over its carapace to secure it there, the 
hooked hairs holding it in position. But these spider crabs are 
not content with covering the carapace, the smaller legs are often 
covered in I. vostratus ; also the rostrum (where the hooked hairs 
may be most easily seen), and even the antennee. 
It is singular that only quite recently most writers on the Crustacea 
agreed that all these foreign substances had naturally grown on the 
crabs just as they might have done upon a rock. Bell attributes 
their growth to the sluggish nature of the crabs, and in speaking of 
isa tetraodon, which he took in very large numbers at Bognor, he 
says, ‘‘ Like all the slow-moving Crustacea, they are very liable to 
be covered with small fuc’, so that they are sometimes completely 
