CRABS. 
17 
adorns the walls of the Bombay Natural History Society 
Smaller specimens are common about Bombay. 
Then there are crabs which make their backs a garden 
and grow seaweeds and even anemones, under whose 
umbrageous shelter they roam about the bed of the ocean 
in aesthetic security. 
Midway between the mud crabs and the sand crabs 
is one whose ingenuity and adroitness rescue it from 
contempt. Its hind legs are transformed into an absurd 
pair of shovels, and the length of its eyes is simply 
ridiculous. If you have patience to sit perfectly motion- 
less for a time at some spot in Back Bay where the 
retreating tide has left a dead level of oozy slime, you 
will see a hundred of these little blueish creatures moving 
about and collecting some form of nourishment from the 
mud with their quaint and crooked claws ; but move a 
hand, and presto! they are gone. In an instant they 
have put themselves under the mud and left nothing, 
except perhaps the points of their long eyes, in the air. 
Then there is the Calling Crab, which has fostered 
one hand until it has grown into a veritable Roman 
shield, behind which the owner may shelter himself, 
calmly taking his food with the other. How these hold 
c 
