SHORES OF THE CLYDE AND FIRTH. 
109 
CHAPTER XIII. 
AT THE TANK. 
nB\WENTY-FOUR hours have elapsed since we dropped 
A. our specimens into the departments of our tank allotted 
for them at the time. All seem healthy, and have voluntarily 
taken up positions for themselves, but nowhere can we find 
our hula lignaria. Where can he have gone to ? He is not of 
such small dimensions that he can have hidden himself in a 
BULA LIGNARIA. 
crevice out of the way. Ha ! yonder, in the corner, is the 
rascal fiddler ; and see, he is stowing, with both hands, the 
last particles of the poor thing down his greedy throat. It 
could scarcely be believed, but he has actually devoured, 
in this instance, fully a square inch of soft matter, and the 
pretty shell of the creature is all that is left behind on the 
floor of the tank, scooped out as clean as if done by the 
lancet of the chiropodist. It is dangerous, at all times, to 
leave any of the crab tribes with their weaker neighbours, 
for they are sure, at some time, to devour them, and none 
more so than the fiddler. He is the most pugnacious of the 
tribe ; nevertheless, from his dress and other qualifications, 
H 
