12 
A NATURALIST ON THE PROWL. 
stones. What was it doing there ? Hunting for crabs. 
Now there is something very revolting in the thought 
that crabs are liable to be killed and eaten by foul jackals 
and disgusting musk rats. The crabs are a peculiarly 
interesting people, like the ancient inhabitants of Mexico, 
unique and not to be ranked with the other tribes of the 
earth. 
Professor Owen holds that the hand of man suffices to 
separate him from all other animals almost as widely as 
any two of them differ from each other. “ The conse- 
quences,” he says, “of the liberation of one pair of limbs 
from all service in station and progression are greater, 
and involve a superior number and quality of powers, than 
those resulting from the change of an ungulate into an 
unguiculate condition of limb.” Think me not a mocker 
if I suggest that the crab shares this endowment with 
man, and perhaps that is the reason why he seems to 
stand apart from all other creatures that are clothed with 
shells. By pedigree the crab, I admit, is but a prawn 
which has curled its tail under its stomach and taken 
to walking ; but no one who has lived much among 
crabs and associated with them, so to speak, can lump 
them with prawns and other shell-fish good for curry. 
