]64 AN UNEXPECTED GUEST. 



aggressor as swiftly inserted his own body, leaving 

 the miserable sufferer struggling in the agonies of 

 death. 



The association which often exists between animals 

 of different races and even of different classes, is 

 always a curious phenomenon ; and the motives which 

 impel to the companionship, no less than the mode 

 in which acquaintance is first formed, are most recon- 

 dite. When this species (Pagurus bernhardusj inha- 

 bits the shells of the Whelk, it is quite common, 

 though by no means universal, to find the spire of 

 the shell occupied as the seat of that very fine Ane- 

 mone, Act. parasitica, which rears its tall and stout 

 form like a thick pillar, surmounted by its dense 

 fringe of tentacles that wave, brush-like, with every 

 vagrant movement of the Crab. 



But I find that this association is not the only one 

 that exists here. While I was feeding one of my 

 Soldiers by giving him a fragment of cooked meat, 

 which he having seized with one claw had transferred 

 to the foot-jaws, and was munching, I saw protrude 

 from between the body of the Crab and the Whelk- 

 shell the head of a beautiful Worm, Nereis hilineata, 

 which rapidly glided out round the Crab's right cheek, 

 and, passing between the upper and lower foot-jaws, 

 seized the morsel of food, and, retreating, forcibly drag- 

 ged it from the Crab's very mouth. I beheld this with 

 amazement, admiring that, though the Crab sought to 

 recover his hold, he manifested not the least sign of 

 anger at the actions of the Worm. I had afterwards 

 many opportunities of seeing this scene enacted over 

 again ; indeed, on every occasion that I fed the Crab 



