THE HERMIT AND THE CRASS. 179 



and I have often seen a poor little hermit forced 

 to take up with a huge whelk-shell, of which only 

 the last whorl remained entire, and into which he 

 exactly fitted. He was almost at the mercy of 

 his habitation, for he could not hold it against 

 the power of the waves, which tumbled it over 

 and over most ruthlessly, while the hermit was 

 making futile grasps at stones and sand by which 

 to arrest his progress. 



The hermit is furnished with an apparatus of 

 pincers at the extremity of his tail, by which he 

 holds firmly to the shell in which he takes up his 

 temporary habitation, and he flattens himself so 

 firmly against the shell that it is difficult to seize 

 the creature at all ; and even when a grasp of 

 any portion can be secured, the hold of the tail is 

 so firm that the animal runs some risk of being 

 torn apart, sooner than leave the shell. Some 

 years since, I was rather anxious to see how the 

 hermit got into his shell, and so, having caught 

 a tolerably large one in a whelk-shell, I tried to 

 pull him out. However, he stuck so close to his 

 shell, that there was no hope of success without 

 inflicting much injury, and I should probably 

 have let him escape, had not an idea then come 

 across my mind. Close by the rock-pool where 

 ih-e hermit had been captured was a colony of 



N 2 



