CRAB-LIKE HOUSE AGENCIES. 121 



hold gives way. Therefore, if you are a fisherman, and 

 are looking for the nice piece of bait, which this succulent 

 abdominal part so conveniently provides, you must, 

 perforce, break the shell with a handy stone, or still more 

 convenient hammer, before you can make it your own. 



In the level parts of the centre of Little Swan Island 

 these hermit-crabs were particularly nimaerous, and it 

 was very curious to notice how, as one was tramping along, 

 the concussion of one's footsteps was communicated 

 to the crabs a few yards in advance. Instantly, on feeling 

 it, they would stop crawling about ; draw in the forepart 

 of the body with all its appendages ; stop up the mouth 

 of the shell with their large hypertrophied " claw," roll 

 over with the base of the shell pointing towards the 

 ground ; and like Brer Fox, lie low. In this position the 

 shells simply look like so many discarded and empty 

 homes strewn upon the ground ; and where the crabs 

 were particularly numerous, this sort of thing went on 

 in front of one at every forward stride almost like 

 clockwork. 



On the bare ground, devoid of undergrowth, we con- 

 stantly came across little parties of crabs which had 

 coUected close together in numbers up to about a dozen. 

 These family parties were composed of crabs of all sizes. 

 They looked like so many picnic parties, or perhaps 

 solemn conclaves assembled to discuss affairs of state. 

 They were often far from the shelter of tree-roots or fallen 

 tree-trunks, under which they are fond of hiding ; and 

 what they were doing we could never discover, although 

 we watched them to try and find out. One suggestion 

 was, that the various members of the party had begun to 

 find the shells in which they lived too small for their 

 comfort, and that these meeting -places were like house 

 agencies, in which an amicable, or the contrary, 

 arrangement could be come to as to the expediency 

 of " swopping " residences. There is one obvious 

 objection to this theory, in that it inevitably leaves 

 out in the cold the unhappy crab with the largest shell. 



