254 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



its tube, and presume the crustacean bad eaten tbem, thougb it 

 is probable tbat the gills bad simply been broken up and 

 scattered amongst the pebbles and had not actually been 

 swallowed. By this time the crustacean had travelled for a 

 distance of about a foot from the place where it began its meal, 

 and the proximal inch and a half of empty tube still remained 

 projecting from the shell to which it was attached. By the next 

 morning this piece also had disappeared, having, I suppose, 

 been eaten by the same, or another, Spider-Crab. 



A few days later a Sabella pavonia in a tube of about nine 

 inches in length and less than a quarter of an inch in diameter 

 was placed on the floor of the same aquarium. The widely- 

 spread gills and a very small portion of the body of the worm 

 were protruding from the tube, when a female Pisa slowly and 

 quietly approached and took hold of the exposed part of the 

 body of the worm, immediately beneath the gills, with its left 

 claw. It is remarkable that a Sabella, which usually darts back 

 into its tube on the slightest alarm, should have suffered itself 

 to be caught by so slow and clumsy an enemy as a Spider- 

 Crab, but perhaps the pressure of my fingers on the lower part 

 of its tube, when I was carrying it to the aquarium, had made 

 the worm reluctant to withdraw. The Spider-Crab now began 

 to tear off the gills of the worm in bunches of two, three, or four, 

 with its right claw, and to hold them to its mouth and bite them, 

 although, apparently not finding them palatable, it did not 

 swallow them. After tearing off, attempting to eat, and reject- 

 ing, several bunches in succession, the Spider-Crab stopped. In 

 the meantime the worm had made frequent violent attempts, 

 which were sufficiently vigorous to cause its tube to swing about 

 in the water, to jerk itself into safety further in its tube. The 

 Spider-Crab now seemed not to care to resist these attempts, 

 although it did not release its grasp of the worm, and presently 

 the latter had pulled itself so far down the tube that the Spider- 

 Crab looked as though it had a very long sleeve on its claw. 

 When, however, it began, two or three minutes later, to walk away 

 over the rocks, it apparently found this sleeve inconvenient, and, 

 withdrawing its limb, it allowed the tube to fall to the ground. 

 The tube lay untouched on the floor for several days, but when I 

 took out the worm and gave it to one of the Spider-Crabs it was 



