[9] Crustacea, by Stebbing.
Is this too merely “instinct”?
Many a time baits were lowered in the nets of the Challenger to attract victims. Oddly enough, it was found that no more effective bait could be used for crabs and their kindred than—pieces of looking-glass! May one imagine that some friendly Medusa lent her little glimmer, far below, to enable the Hermit-crabs, when putting on fresh ribbons, to see their reflections, and judge of the effect? It reads rather like a page of Alice in Wonderland.
Hermit-crabs or Soldier-crabs, having an insufficient protective armour of their own, are in the habit of using empty Mollusc shells to shelter that part of their bodies which is not guarded. One of these crabs, when young, chooses a shell, fitted to its size; and when grown too large for it, that shell is discarded in favour of a new one.
But whether the said crab commonly contents himself with an empty habitation, the occupant of which has died earlier, or whether he first kills and eats the live Mollusc, and then “commandeers” the shell, does not seem to be known with certainty.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE WORLD OF FISHES
“He giveth food to all flesh.”
Ps. cxxxvi.
“Which giveth food to the hungry.”
Ps. cxlvi. 7.