254 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



The numerous family of the Paguri, or Hermit crabs, is also 

 condemned by its formation to lead a parasitic and robber-life. 

 The fore part of the body is indeed, as in other 

 crabs, armed with claws and covered with a 

 shield, but ends in a long soft tail provided 

 with one or two small hooks. How then are 

 the poor creatures to help themselves ? The 

 hirid part is not formed for swimming, and its 

 weight prevents them from running. Thus 

 nothing remains for them but to look about 

 Diogenea Hemiit them for gome s h e lter, and this is afforded 

 them by several conchiform shells, bucoina y 

 neritce, in which they so tenaciously insert their hooked tails, as it 

 both were grown together. So long as they are young and feeble, 

 they content themselves with such shells as they find empty on 

 the strand, but when grown to maturity, they attack living 

 specimens, seize with their sharp claws the snail, ere it can with- 

 draw into its shell, and after devouring its flesh, creep without 

 ceremony into the conquered dwelling, which fits them like a 

 coat when they take a walk, andjthe mouth of which they close 

 when at rest with their largest forceps, in the same manner as 

 the original possessor used his operculum or lid. How re- 

 markable that an animal should thus find in another creature 

 belonging to a totally different class, the completion, a3 it 

 were, of its being, and be indebted to it for the protecting cover 

 which its own skin is unable to secrete ! 



When the dwelling of the pagurus becomes inconveniently 

 narrow, the remedy is easy, for appropriate sea-shells abound 

 wherever hermit crabs exist. They are found on almost every 

 coast, and every new scientific voyage makes us acquainted with 

 new species. According to Quoy and Gaimard, they are par- 

 ticularly numerous at the Ladrones, New Guinea, and Timor. 

 The strand of the small island of Kewa, in Coupang Bay, was 

 entirely covered with them. In the heat of the day they 

 seek the shade of the bushes ; but as soon as the cool of evening 

 approaches, they come forth by thousands. Although they 

 make all large snail-houses answer their purposes, they seem in 

 this locality to prefer the large Sea Nerites. 



The famous East Indian Cocoa-nut Crab (Birgus latro), a 

 kind of intermediate link between the short and long tailed 



