132 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



an empty shell, discarding as it grows each narrow 

 habitation for a size larger. Disconsolate is the con- 

 dition of the hermit crab who has outgrown his quarters, 

 or has been enticed from them or "drawn" by a cousin 

 stronger than he, or who has had the fortune to be ejected 

 without dismemberment. The full face of the red blue- 

 spotted variety {Pagurus punctulatus) is an effective menace 

 to any ordinary foe, and that honourable part is presented at 

 the front door when the tenant is at home. For safety's 

 sake the flabby gelatinous, inert rear end must be tucked 

 and hooked into the convolutions of the shell, deprived of 

 which he is at the mercy of foes very much his inferior in 

 fighting weight and truculent appearance. The disinter- 

 ested spectator may smile at the vain, yet frantically serious 

 efforts of the hermit to coax his flabby rear into a shell 

 obviously a flattering misfit. But it is not a smiling matter 

 to him. Not until he has exhausted a programme of 

 ingenious attitudes and comic contortions is the attempt to 

 stow away a No. 8 tail into a No. 5 shell abandoned. 

 When a shell of respectable dimensions is presented, and 

 the grateful hermit backs in, settles comfortably, arrays all 

 his weapons against intruders, and peers out with an 

 expression of ferocious content, smiles may come, and will be 

 out of place only when the aches of still increasing bulk force 

 him to hustle again for still more commodious lodgings. 



A frilled clam {Tridacna compressd) in its infancy seals 

 or anchors itself in a tiny crack or crevice, and apparently 

 by a continuous but imperceptible movement analogous to 

 elbow-rooming, deepens and enlarges its cavity as it 

 develops. Should it survive in defiance of all its foes, just 

 taking from the sea the sustenance for which it craves with 

 gaping valves, it may increase in bulk, but its apartment in 

 the limestone never seems too large — ^just a neat fit. In 

 its abiding-place it presents an irregular strip of silk, green 

 as polished malachite, or dark green and grey, or blue and 

 slaty green, mottled and marbled, with crimped edges and 

 graceful folds-«^an attractive ornament in the drab rock. 

 Touch any part — there is a slow suspensory withdrawal, 



