SOLDIER-CRABS. 163 



rested on the savage Violet Fiddler {Portunus puber), 

 ■whose biography I shall presently record. The last 

 occasion on which I had seen my httle Ehalia alive 

 was two days before, when I had routed him out of 

 his burrow to show him to a visitor. 



THE COMMON SOLDIER-CRAB. 



The Soldiers (as indeed becomes their profession) 

 are well known to be pugnacious and impudent ; yet 

 watchful and cautious. Indeed, their manners and 

 disposition, no less than their appearance, bear the 

 strongest resemblance to those of Spiders, a resem- 

 blance not peculiar to this genus, but more or less 

 characteristic of all the Crabs. Two of them can 

 scarcely approach each other without manifestations 

 of hostility; each warily stretches out his long feet 

 and feels the other, just as Spiders do, and strives to 

 find an opportunity of seizing his opponent in some 

 tender part with his own strong claws. Generally 

 they are satisfied with the proofs afibrded of mutual 

 prowess, and each, finding the other armed at all 

 points, retires ; but, not unseldom, a regular passage 

 of arms ensues, the claws are rapidly thrown about, 

 widely gaping and threatening, and the combatants roll 

 over and over in the tussle. 



Sometimes, however, the aggressive spirit is more 

 decided, more ferocious, more of the genuine Russian 

 type. One in the Aquarium of the Zoological Gar- 

 dens was seen to approach another, who tenanted a 

 shell somewhat larger than his own, and, suddenly 

 seizing his victim's front with his powerful claw, drag 

 him like lightning from his house, into which the 



