gravel into your tank, and the thing's complete."

"Nay, not quite," said Peterkin, who had been gravely attentive to
this off-hand advice, "not quite; you must first make three little
men to dive in it before it can be said to be perfect, and that
would be rather difficult, I fear, for two of them would require to
be philosophers. But hallo! what's this? I say, Ralph, look here.
There's one o' your crabs up to something uncommon. It's
performing the most remarkable operation for a crab I ever saw, -
taking off its coat, I do believe, before going to bed!"

We hastily stooped over the tank, and certainly were not a little
amused at the conduct of one of the crabs which still survived it
companions. It was one of the common small crabs, like to those
that are found running about everywhere on the coasts of England.
While we gazed at it, we observed its back to split away from the
lower part of its body, and out of the gap thus formed came a soft
lump which moved and writhed unceasingly. This lump continued to
increase in size until it appeared like a bunch of crab's legs:
and, indeed, such it proved in a very few minutes to be; for the
points of the toes were at length extricated from this hole in its
back, the legs spread out, the body followed, and the crab walked
away quite entire, even to the points of its nipper-claws, leaving
a perfectly entire shell behind it, so that, when we looked, it
seemed as though there were two complete crabs instead of one!

"Well!" exclaimed Peterkin, drawing a long breath, "I've HEARD of a
man jumping out of his skin and sitting down in his skeleton in
order to cool himself, but I never expected to SEE a crab do it!"