The Hermit Crab. 
439 
44 To turne a crab/’ writes Dr. Drake, 44 is to roast a wilding or wild 
apple in the fire for the purpose of being thrown hissing hot into a 
bowl of nut-brown ale, into which had been previously put a toast 
with some spice and sugar.” ( ShaJssjoeare and his Times , 1817, vol. i. 
p. 105.) 
In the well-known drinking song which prefaces the 
second act of the old comedy, Gammer Gurton’s Needle, 
first printed in 1551, we read:— 
44 1 love no rost, but a nut brown toste. 
And a crab layde in the fyre ; 
A lytle bread shall do me stead, 
Much bread I not desyre.” 
The ingenious device employed by the hermit crab in 
order to gain a habitation, is described by Du Bartas 
(p. 42):— 
44 There would I cease save that this hum’rous song 
The hermit-fish compels me to prolong. 
A man of might that builds him a defence 
’Gainst weathers rigour and warr’s insolence, 
First dearly buyes (for, what good is good-cheap ?) 
Both the rich matter and rare workmanship : 
But, without buying timber, lime, and stone, 
Or hiring men to build his mansion, 
Or borrowing house, or paying rent therefore, 
He lodgeth safe: for, finding on the shoare 
Some handsom shell, whose native lord, of late' 
Was dispossessed by the doom of fate : 
Therein he enters, and he takes possession 
Of th’ empty harbour by the free concession 
Of natures law ; who, goods that owner want 
Alwaies allots to the first occupant. 
In this new cace, or in this cradle (rather) 
He spends his youth: then, growing both together 
In age and wit, he gets a wider cell 
Wherein at sea his later dales to dwell.” 
Olaus Magnus gives a quaint account of the Polypus, 
an early name for what is now known as the 
octopus:— 
44 On the coasts of Norway there is a polypus, or creature with 
Polypus. 
