It is that unaccountable association of diverse and unrelated creatures, which, if we had not repeatedly seen it, we should not believe; the companionship of the Hermit-crab with the beautiful Cloak-anemone.
HERMIT-CRAB AND CLOAKLET.
Every one is familiar with that impudent and intrusive species of Hermit-crab,[119] which, with its foxy-brown head and legs protruding, rolls over shells and pebbles with rattling patter, on almost every beach. The species I speak of is quite distinct from that homely and amusing subject. Though attaining a size fully equal, its proportions are much slenderer and more elegant; and the colours,—a light fawn, set off with soft tints of azure, lilac, and scarlet,—are far more beautiful than those of its fellow; not to speak of technical characters which abundantly distinguish the two.
The companion of the Cloaklet, which bears the name of Mr. Prideaux of Plymouth, who first made it known, is exclusively a deep-water species. Found on various parts of our coast, it invariably occurs in this association. I believe the Crab in no instance lives without the Anemone, the Anemone in no instance without the Crab. Examples, indeed, do now and then occur, as mentioned by Forbes, in which the one comes up in the dredge without the other; but I believe this is only when the rude action of the dredge has frightened the Crab, and induced it suddenly to vacate the shell and desert its friend. The Bernard is never attended by any such companion.[120]
The history of the tenancy of univalve shells by these curious Crabs is well known; and the comic scenes that take place in the process of flitting from one tenement to another, larger and more commodious, have been so fully narrated by myself and other observers, that I shall assume the reader to be conversant with them.[121] And the rather because the association of the Crab with the Zoophyte is a thing so much more singular, so much more unaccountable, and so much less generally known, that I shall seek to tell the story in some detail.
Plate 27.
P. H. GOSSE, del. LEIGHTON, BROS.
PURPLE HERMIT-CRAB. CLOAKLET. COMMON HERMIT-CRAB.
HERMIT AND CLOAKLET.
To premise:—the Cloaklet is an anemone of the Sagartia family, beautiful in its colours and remarkable in its form. It is generally reddish-brown on the outer (lower) part of its body, which hue melts into snowy white on the upper parts; the whole studded with rosy-purple spots, and surmounted by a marginal line of pale scarlet. The tentacles and disk are pure white. It attains a rather large size, and has the peculiarity of being not round in its basal outline like other Anemones, but oblong, the base expanding in two lateral directions. It always selects the inner lip of an univalve shell for its place of adhesion, and the two lateral ends of its base gradually extend around the mouth of the shell till they meet on its outer edge, and unite with a suture: thus the outline of the animal forms a ring.