CRUSTACEA. 
155 
an eye, an antenna, or one or more limbs. They surpass 
most marine animals in their powers of enduring life at a 
distance from sea-water, and may easily be kept for several 
weeks in a botanic vasculum. 
The shore-crab is strictly carnivorous and, as already men¬ 
tioned, even relishes its fellows. It is a curious feature in 
its history that it suffers serious annoyance and injury from 
the young of the common mussel, which plant themselves 
in its orbits (Plate IX. fig. 11), in the sockets of the in¬ 
ternal antennas, in the branchial chambers, and under the 
tail (Plate IX. fig. 10)—in the former case often destroy¬ 
ing both eyes. It feeds with avidity on the mussel in 
its adult state; so that here is an instance of a helpless 
young form avenging the destruction of the mature. The 
shore-crab, again, is devoured by many fishes : thus in the 
stomach of a Cottus bubalis I have found five or six speci¬ 
mens, two entire and upwards of 2 inches across the carapace. 
The Cottus , however, unfortunately came in the way of a large 
frogfish, which found a place for it in its capacious stomach, 
though nine full-grown flounders were already present. In 
many parts of Britain and the continent the shore-crab is used 
as food by man (and this is a safe-enough practice so long as 
it is well boiled, internal parasites being abundant) ; but at 
St. Andrews it is only employed occasionally for bait. 
Myriads of the young of this species in the zoea-stage 
occur at the surface of the bay in autumn, and may easily 
be kept alive, so as to show the subsequent stages of develop¬ 
ment. 
Besides those already mentioned, many of the other forms 
are very common, such as Stenorhynchus rostratus , Inachus , 
Hyas , Portumnus variegatus , the Portuni , Pinnotheres , Ebalia , 
and Nephrops in deep water, Porcellana , the Paguri , Galathea , 
and Crangon between tide-marks, and in both regions Hippo- 
lyte , Pandalus, and Palcemon. In deep water swarms of Hyas 
coarctatus for the most part take the place of H. araneus. As 
a littoral form Palcemon squilla is local, but, in company with 
Pandalus annulicornis , it is abundant in deep water. The 
common shrimp is seldom captured by man for food. Portumnus 
variegatus is often the only form visible on the West Sands, 
and is very plentiful. The rarer forms are Eurynome , Piri- 
x 2 
