182 



CHANGING HOUSE. 



When one of these hermits is in captivity, and 

 feels ill, he crawls out of his shell, and generally 

 dies in an hour or two afterwards. It is a very 

 curious propensity, and one that is shared by the 

 tube-inhabiting worms, as has already been men- 

 tioned. The habit is the more remarkable, as the 

 usual instinct of animals leads them to the most 

 retired spots that they can find, and there to 

 resign themselves to death. 



The formation of the hermit is wonderfully 

 suited to the strange habitation which it adopts, 

 and a hermit when removed from the shell would 

 hardly be recognised for the same creature as that 

 which was snugly curled up within it. Even the 

 claws are modified, for the purpose of lying 

 smoothly in the shell's mouth, one of them 

 being very large, and placed in front, as a shield 

 and weapon united, while the other is very 

 small, and is almost wholly retracted within the 

 shell. 



When a hermit desires to change his habitation, 

 he goes through a curious series of performances, 

 which, if he had hands, we should be disposed to 

 call manipulations. A shell lies on the ground, 

 and the hermit seizes it with his claws and feet, 

 twists it about with wonderful dexterity, as if 

 testing its weight ; and having examined every 



