106 
THE SALT-WATER AQUARIUM. 
Hermit Crabs are soft-tailed creatures, and, in the absence of a shell to 
cover their posterior extremities, they occupy the empty shells of whelks, 
or other mollusks, as they may 
happen to find them. As they 
grow they are occasionally 
obliged to quit their old tene¬ 
ment, and seek a larger one. 
Its manner of doing this is thus 
described by the Rev. J. G. 
Wood: 
“When a hermit desires to 
change his habitation, he goes 
through a curious series of 
performances, which, if he had hands, we should be disposed to call 
manipulations. A shell lies on the ground, and the hermit seizes it 
with his claws and feet, twists it about with wonderful dexterity, as if test¬ 
ing its weight; and having examined every portion of its exterior, he pro¬ 
ceeds to satisfy himself about the interior. For this purpose he pushes his 
fore legs as far into the shell as they will reach, and probes, with their as¬ 
sistance, every spot that can be reached. If this examination satisfies him, 
he whisks himself into^he shell with such rapidity, that he appears to have 
been acted upon by a spring.” 
Helpless as these poor hermits look, and tossed about as they sometimes 
are by the waves, when, from a scarcity of shells, they are obliged to oc¬ 
cupy tenements too big for them to manage, they are said to. be highly pug¬ 
nacious. The following account of them, given by George Henry Lewes, 
in his “ Sea-Side Studies,” is well worth perusal: 
“ You doubtless kno^v the hermit crab, pagurus ? Unlike other crabs, 
who are content to live in their own shells, pagurus lives in the empty shell 
of some mollusk. He looks fiercely upon the world from out this appar¬ 
ently inconvenient tub, the Diogenes of Crustacea, and wears an expression 
of conscious yet defiant theft, as if he knew the rightful owner of the shell, 
or its relatives, were coming every moment to recover it, and he, for his part, 
very much wished they might get it! All the fore part of pagurus, in¬ 
cluding his claws, is defended by the solid armor of crabs. But his hind 
parts are soft, covered only by a delicate membrane, in which the anato¬ 
mist, however, discovers shell-plates in a rudimentary condition. Now a 
gentleman so extremely pugnacious, troubled with so tender a back and con¬ 
tinuation, would fare ill in this combative world, had he not some means of 
redressing the wrong done to him at birth; accordingly he selects an empty 
shell, of convenient size, into which he pops his tender tail, fastening on by 
the hooks on each side of his tail; and having thus secured his rear, ho 
scuttles over the sea-bed, a grotesque but philosophical marauder. 
“Very ludicrous was the scene which I witnessed between two of these 
crabs taken from their shells'. Selecting them nearly equal in size, I drop- 
HERM1T CRAB. 
