CRAB. 
' 539 
food,, and are said to poison the persons who eat 
them : when this happens, it is supposed the animals 
have been feeding on the manchineel apple; for 
whenever they are found upon that: noxious plant, 
they are always rejected with caution. 
We have a species of crab on our shores whose 
singular manners have obtained it the name of her- 
mit. This is the Cancer Bernhardus of Linnaeus, 
and is found from half an inch, to four inches long. 
Nature seems to have sported with this creature, 
and has condemned it to seek that covering which 
other crabs are provided with from their birth. 
Being entirely destitute of shell, except upon its 
nippers, the hermit crab is obliged to seek the 
empty habitation of a periwinkle, a trochus, or a 
whelk, which it immediately occupies and continues 
to reside in, till, by becoming too large for its house, 
it is under the necessity of changing it. When this 
is the case, the hermit is seen busily parading the 
shore along that line of pebbles and shells that is 
formed by the extremest wave, still, however, drag- 
ging its old incommodious habitation at its tail, un- 
willing to part with one shell, even though a trou- 
blesome appendage, till it can find another more 
convenient. In this search the crab is described as 
stopping at one shell, turning it and passing it by, 
going on to another, contemplating that for a while, 
and slipping its tail from its old habitation to try 
