276 the living animals of the world 
have seen numbers of the little greenish Shore-crabs, running about on the sand, or over 
seaweed-covered rocks, at low tide. These small crabs are harmless, but large kinds are able 
to give a very severe pinch. It is related that when the great chemist Sir Humphry Davy 
was a boy he used to maintain that pain was no evil, until a large crab gripped his toe one 
day when he was bathing, after which he changed his opinion. 
Some crabs are smooth and shining, but others are covered with bosses, excrescences, and 
spines, which give them a very formidable appearance, and must be a useful protection against 
any enemies to whose attacks they are e.xposed. In many species one of the two great claws 
is always much larger than the other. Some have round bodies, others are oval or nearly 
square ; some have short legs, and others very long ones. The species differ much in their 
habits; and in tropical countries there are land-crabs which live entirely on shore, and others 
which are amphibious, and climb cocoanut-trees to get at the nuts. As a general rule, 
however, crabs are carnivorous and marine, and play the part of sea-scavengers. 
The King-crabs differ very much from any now living in the British seas, but 
are generally considered to be allied to the Trilobites, an e.xtinct family which appears to 
have been extremely 
numerous in v^ery ancient 
seas. King-crabs are 2 
or 3 feet long from the 
front of the body to the 
end of the tail. The 
front part of the body 
is entirely covered by a 
curved oval shield, while 
the hinder part of the 
body is much narrower, 
and armed at the sides 
with strong teeth directed 
backwards, and also with 
a long and strong spear, 
something like that of 
a sword-fish on a small 
scale, as long as the rest 
of the body. The few 
species known exhibit an 
instance of what is called 
“ discontinuous distribu- 
Moluccas, East Indies, and the 
rr. Saville-Kent, F.Z.S. 
FIGHTING CRABS 
Tie males are remarkable for iaa/ing one large scarlet clazu, the other being rudimentary/ l^the females 
possess t*wo small claivs only). The eyes also are seated at the end of long stalks 
tion,” since they are found only on the 
Southern United States and West Indies. 
coasts of the 
Scorpions, Spiders, and Mites 
These creatures form a peculiar group in which there are only two principal divisions of 
the body, the head and thorax being fused into one mass, and the abdomen forming a separate 
division. In the Mites, however, the body forms a single round or oval mass, even the division 
between the thora.x and the abdomen having disappeared. The members of the group have 
no antennae, but two pairs of jaws and a pair of palpi, frequently very long, and armed with 
a pincer-like arrangement at the end, in which case they are called “ foot-jaws.” Except in 
some of the mites, which have only four or six, all the group have eight legs. They pass 
through no metamorphosis, but moult several times after quitting the egg before attaining 
their full growth. They have frequently several pairs of simple eyes, but no compound eyes 
like the large pair on the head of most insects. 
In the Scorpions, of which there is a considerable variety in different parts of the world, 
