A Year at the Shore

by Philip Henry Gosse

Among the Urchins proper there are some species, such as the Sphere Sea-egg, and the one known as Fleming’s, which have a figure not far from that of a globe. Others are much more depressed, of which the little Purple-tipped is a notable example. Still the spherical shape is conspicuous. From this rounded form other species, more and more flattened, gradually lead to the Scutella, which takes the form of a thin round plate, quite flat beneath, but slightly convex on the upper surface. The structure is the same as before, but the spines appear to the naked eye only as very minute hairs; but, when magnified, are found to be of the most elaborate workmanship, each having a movable socket-joint. In the genus Clypeaster, the round outline is changed for a five-sided figure, the angles of which in succeeding species project more and more, and the spaces between become more and more indented, till we arrive at the Starlets, and at length to the Cross-fishes (Asteriadæ). The rays gradually becoming longer and more slender, we are brought to those in which they are so lengthened as to resemble the tails of so many serpents, whence they are named Ophiura. In succeeding genera, such as that called Medusa’s head (Gorgonocephalus), the central part is still further diminished, and the rays are divided into branches of great length and number. Each ray, soon after its commencement, separates into two more; these again into two others, and so on to an astonishing extent. Upwards of 2500 ramifications have been counted on a single specimen, presenting a living net, by the contraction of which any small animal once touched would inevitably be detained. The sucker-feet are no longer found, these animals changing their position by dragging themselves along by their flexible arms. Finally, we have the Feather-stars, which, as we have seen, in their infant condition, and the Lily-stars, which throughout life (as the abundant fossil species in our own land, and that noble one which still exists in the West Indian seas), consist of slender-jointed arms, with feather-like filaments, seated at the free extremity of a tall jointed stalk, also furnished with whorls of filaments, which is fixed by its base to the solid rock.

Altogether, the series presents us with one of the most instructive and most marvellous examples of the vast variety of external form and internal structure which may be assumed by almost insensible modifications of one plan of organization; and so of the unfathomable resources of wisdom in the ever-blessed God. For every one of these links,—and there are multitudes which I have not named, found either in remote seas or in a fossil condition, that fill up the gaps with close gradations—displays an essentially common model; and the least fragment of the stony skeleton of any one would be sufficient to enable a competent naturalist to decide authoritatively, the instant he looked at it beneath his microscope, that it belonged to the great class Echinodermata. The calcareous shell of which the framework is composed,—a glass made of lime,—is deposited in a fashion which, while common to all, is found nowhere else throughout the whole animal kingdom.

FLAT-CRABS.

Let us turn from these investigations, fascinating as they are, to examine the ways and means of two or three other creatures, familiar enough to us who habitually explore the sea-margin. I allude to certain members of the great class Crustacea, not Crabs nor Lobsters exactly, but called so by courtesy, something in fact between both. My dredger’s hauls are always sure to contain, creeping in the tangled thickets of Laomedea, Antennularia, and other of the flexible Polyps, or playing at bo-peep from the interstices of the Serpula masses,—numerous specimens of a tiny Crab,[91] with a circular flat shell, no bigger than a split-pea, large wide claws, and very long antennæ, like two hairs. They are of various colours, sometimes pure white, sometimes chocolate-brown, and often clouded with different hues. Minute as they are, they are not despised by great fishes; for the heavy-sided, clumsy-headed cods, that occupy so large an area on the fishmonger’s slab, are often found to have their stomachs packed full with these little Crabs; which doubtless the glutton picks off one by one, enjoying the taste of the savoury atom as it rolls over his fat fleshy tongue.

THEIR MANNERS.

But we may much more easily procure specimens of his bigger brother, the Shaggy Flat-crab,[92] which abounds under nearly every flat stone at low-water on Babbicombe beach, and indeed almost everywhere else, under the like conditions. He is a curious subject, though far from attractive as to his personnel, for he is, I regret to say, of irreclaimably dirty habits. You never find him but he is begrimed and saturated, so to speak, with the impalpable red mud of which our soil consists,—the débris of the red sandstone. Yet blame him not. He is more hirsute than a modern swell; his hands and his face are as hairy as Esau’s; a dense short pile of stiff bristles stands out from all his prominences, and catches and entangles the sediment in the midst of which he loves to riot. I say again, blame him not; we must not infer that he likes dirt for its own sake, because he gets his living in it, any more than the sweep or the dustman chose his trade because he had a penchant for the grime. Nay, dirty as our little flat friend is, he is endowed with organs expressly for the purpose of cleaning himself, and fails not to use them too. On first looking at him you would suppose, comparing him with other Crabs, that he was short of one pair of feet; yet presently, from a narrow, almost invisible crevice behind, he jerks out two jointed limbs, as slender as bristles, which, however, are each terminated by a tiny two-fingered claw, and are beset throughout their length by stiff short hairs standing out at right angles, like a brush. These feeble limbs are indeed cleansing brushes, with which he keeps certain portions of his person clean, applying them with the greatest ease to the whole surface of the abdomen, and under-side of the carapace or body-shell, while the delicate fingers of the little hand are used to pick off adhering matters that cannot be removed by brushing. Then having done his washing, he cleans his brushes with his mouth, and snugly folds them up, and packs them away in their groove till he wants them again. Yet with all this, he remains, as I said at first, a dirty subject notwithstanding.

Plate 21.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
OLIVE SQUAT-LOBSTER. SHAGGY FLAT-CRAB. SCARLET SQUAT-LOBSTER.

A curious chapter in the history of this little creature, which I have put on record elsewhere,[93] is, I think, so very instructive, that I may venture to repeat some parts of it here. Let me premise that the Crab habitually lives under stones, a habit for which the remarkable flatness and thinness of all its parts adapts it; he has somewhat of the appearance of having been crushed flat by the pressure of the stone under which he lives. He does not wander much to seek his food, but expects it to be brought to him, he making provision for its conveyance.