418 Fiddler-Crabs. [May 
The males are very pugnacious, rivalling the oft-described 
hermit-crabs in this respect. When two meet they almost inva- 
riably threaten each other, if they do not at once fall to blows. 
If the tide is almost up to their homes they seem to agree to 
postpone the battle, but at other times they quickly begin the 
fray. When the foe is in sight the crab, whose body has been 
close to the sand, its legs spread out, its big claw folded close 
against the body, at once puts its forces ona war-footing. The 
slender legs are drawn in, and, walking on the tips of his toes, 
he elevates his’ body high in the air- and puts his large claw, at 
once an organ of offence and defence, at an angle of forty-five 
degrees. His eyes are elevated, so as to obtain a clear view, and 
then he flings himself towards his opponent. As he does so he 
draws down his eyes for safety and still further extends his big 
claw, with which he tries to grasp his antagonist, who, in the 
mean time, has been going through similar preparations. The 
loss of a limb is- not such a serious affair to them as it is to 
larger warriors. The wound caused by the amputation soon - 
scars over, and when the next molt takes place a new limb ap- 
pears just like its predecessor, only smaller. At a subsequent 
molt it gains its proper size. 
The fiddler has no feature more curious than his power of 
packing or doubling himself up. The door to his underground 
home looks scarcely larger than his Square compact body, and 
yet, when alarmed, he goes into it like a flash. He runs to the 
opening and then folds down those curiously mobile eyes, packs 
away his eight walking-legs and his big and little claws, and 
disappears below. Unless you have actually watched him, you 
can hardly believe that the fiddler which you saw a moment 
before hurrying across the beach and waving his hands with 
__ those gestures which have given him his name has darted into 
that small opening. You are more inclined to think that, like 
the people in the fairy tales, he has donned his cap of invisibility 
and that this explains the mystery. ae 
A 
