i8 
A NATURALIST ON THE PROWL. 
their own I cannot tell. They are not strong, nor yet 
swift, nor wary ; but wherever the sand is soft and black, 
they people the shore in countless numbers. It may be 
that that blazing muster of gaunt, mailed hands in orange 
and red, ceaselessly beckoning to all the world to come, 
tries the courage even of a hungry crow. I am inclined to 
think this is the explanation of the matter, for I have 
often seen one of the feeblest of the .mud crabs collect 
in dense squadrons and perform long journeys over the 
open shore, with nothing to protect them from wholesale 
slaughter unless it was the fear inspired by such an 
ominous mass of legs and arms. 
Where the foaming waves dash themselves against 
rugged rocks and moss-clad boulders, with black fissures 
between, and here and there a clear pool, tenanted by 
anemones and limpets and a quivering, darting little fish, 
chafing in prison till the next tide shall come and set it 
free, there the sand crab is replaced by the crab of the 
rocks, most supple-limbed of living things. How it turns 
the corner of a mossy rock, as slippery as that 
“ plug of Irish soap 
Which the girl had left on the topmost stair,” 
and awaits unmoved the onset of a great wave, then 
