62 Note on the Habits of Hermit Crabs. 



artificial manner, and this it effects by appropriating the 

 empty shell of some dead mollusc, such as the common 

 periwinkle or whelk." 



Huxley [Anat. Invertebrated Animals, p. 340) says: "It 

 is by means of these (claspers) that the hermit crab retains 

 firm hold of the columella of the empty gasteropod shell, into 

 which it is his habit to thrust his unprotected abdomen, 

 and, covering over his retracted body with the enlarged 

 chela, which takes the place of an operculum, resists all 

 attempts at forcible extraction." 



Even Van Beneden, the specialist on parasites and mess- 

 mates, writes (An. Parasites, p. 24) : " The shells which give 

 them shelter are such as have been shed* which they find at 

 the bottom of the sea, and in which they conceal their weak- 

 ness and their misery." 



At Portarlington I lately obtained a soldier or hermit 

 crab (Clibanarius barbatus, Heller), occupying a full- 

 grown shell of Phasianella Tritonis, which appeared quite 

 fresh in its colour, and very unlike a shed and rubbed 

 specimen, such as one does find among the rocks of the sea- 

 bed. I placed the soldier in his shell, in a large bottle of 

 water, in company with a living Fasciolaria coronata of 

 about the same size as the pheasant shell. In about an hour 

 the crab seemed to have inspected his companion, and to 

 have coveted his abode, for from that time his busy claws 

 were at work restlessly all the following evening and night, 

 tugging at the operculum of the whelk. The bottle was in 

 my bedroom, and I lay awake at times listening to the 

 scuffle. In the morning the crab was found seated at his 

 ease in the whelk's shell, while the torn fresh fragments 

 of the foot and head of the latter were evidence in the 

 bottle of his forcible piecemeal ejectment. It was quite 

 clear that in this instance at least the hermit had not by any 

 means waited until the shell it desired was empty. Nor is 

 it likely that this is a solitary case. I believe that the 

 pheasant shell had been acquired from a living animal. My 

 brother, Dr. Lucas, informs me that, in a recent visit to 

 Northern Queensland, he noted that the appearance of the 

 tenements of the tropical hermit crabs was more often- that 

 of fresh than of dead shells. 



Without denying that the hermits may content themselves 

 with empty shells which may suit their convenience (for 



* The italics are mine. 



