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It is reafonable to conclude, that this wonderful 
Faculty, is given to the Crab for wife Ends and Pur- 
poles which will evidently appear when the Nature 
of this Animal is better known. 
The Crabs are naturally very quarrelfome, and with 
their great Legs or Claws fight and kill one another : 
With them they catch hold of their Adversary's Legs, 
and whatever they feize, they firongly retain for a long 
while : There is no efcaping their cruel Foe, but by 
voluntarily leaving a Part of the Leg behind, in 
Token of Viftory 5 but the principal End for which 
this is done, is the faving the Life of the Conquer'd > 
for when they are bitten and bruifed, and cannot 
break off that Limb, they foon bleed to Death. 
The Fifhermen fhew’d an Experiment, to give us 
fome Idea of the tenacious Difpofition of this Crea- 
ture, by obliging a Crab with its great Claw to lay 
hold of a fmall one : The filly Creature did not dif- 
tinguifh that itfelf was the Aggrefl.br 5 but exerted its 
Strength, and foon crack'd the Shell of its own fmall 
Leg, and it bled freely j but, feeling itfelf wounded, 
to fave its Life required a Power peculiar to itfelf to 
break off that Limb in the ufual Place ; which it pre- 
fently effe&ed, and held faft for a long time the broken 
Part in its great Claw : Which evidently (hews, that 
this Creature retains whatever it lays holds on, and,, 
when overcome by its Enemy, ranfoms its Life at 
the Expencc of a Limb, 
XV. 
