122 Glimpses of Marine Life on the Forth, [Sess. 



its forms — reddish -brown in the lower part, melting into 

 snowy white, the whole studded with rosy purple spots : the 

 tentacles and disc are pure white. It attains a rather large 

 size, and has the peculiarity of not being round in its basal 

 outline, like other anemones, but oblong, the base expanding 

 in two lateral directions. It always selects the inner lip of 

 a univalve shell for its place of adhesion, and the two lateral 

 ends of its base gradually extend around the mouth of the 

 shell, till they meet on its outer edge and unite with a 

 suture : thus, the outline of the animal forms a ring. Gosse 

 relates how, in an aquarium, a hermit crab changed to a 

 larger shell, and thereafter removed the Adamsia and pressed 

 it to the inner lip of the new shell till it adhered. 



The hermit crab lives a solitary life in his own habitation, 

 like Diogenes in his tub, and sometimes goes by the name of 

 the Soldier Crab, on account of his very pugnacious habits. 

 He is furnished with an apparatus of pincers at the extremity 

 of his tail, by which he holds firmly to the shell in which he 

 takes up his temporary habitation, and he flattens himself so 

 firmly against the shell that it is difficult to seize the creature 

 at all. The hold of the tail is so firm that the animal runs 

 some risk of being torn apart sooner than leave the shell. 

 J. G-. Wood got him to quit by dropping him among some 

 anemones. He looked very woebegone, trailing his defence- 

 less tail behind him, as if he were ashamed of it. 



Hermits are very combative and fight when they meet, but 

 the beaten one afterwards makes way whenever the victor 

 comes near. The large claw serves both as shield and weapon. 

 In changing, the hermit is often as difficult to please as a 

 human householder. He examines the shell thoroughly, then 

 " whisks " himself into it. It is said that when two of them 

 happen simultaneously to cast a longing eye upon some par- 

 ticularly desirable residence, they often engage in a fierce 

 battle for the possession of the coveted object, which the 

 victor carries off in triumph. 



Certain hermit crabs have forsaken the sea as a permanent 

 abode, and spend the greater part of their lives on land. For 

 instance, the genus Cenohita, which occurs both in the West 

 Indies and India, may be met with in forests far from the 

 coast. The great cocoa-nut crab {Birgus latro) inhabits deep 



