114 THE HERMIT CRAB. 



as hermit crabs. To the naturalist who delights 

 in the antiquities of his science, the conspicuous 

 part played by the hermit crab on these classic 

 shores has a double attraction, for, independent 

 of the interest attached to the singular habits and 

 sagacity of this curious creature, in it we 

 see the veritable KocpKiviov, which Aristotle took 

 so much pains to observe and describe."'' 5 " This 

 animal, he tells us, has characters common 

 both to the Crustacea and testacea. In form 

 it resembles a y^apcc&og, by which name he 

 evidently means the spiny lobster. It is born 

 without any shell, but, like the testacea, it 

 passes its life in a shell. Then he recounts its 

 characters in detail, and with wonderful accuracy. 

 After describing its anterior members, he notices 

 the softness of the posterior half of the body 

 (/uaXaKov avav £<rn), and states that it is not 

 fixed to its shell like the animal of the whelk, 

 and, consequently, may be easily drawn out 

 of it. Curiously enough the truth of this state- 

 ment was made a matter of controversy among 

 naturalists in the early part of last century, for 

 Swammerdam denied the assertion of Aristotle, 

 that the hermit was not the true owner of his 



* HspL ZiotoV) iv. 4. 



