Shall I dispose of the dandy first? Perhaps it were better so, for I
confess to a very slight acquaintanceship with him, and as I am ignorant,
too, of its ceremonious as well as familiar title, the pleasure of a
formal introduction is denied. In the portrait the ruling
passions--modesty and meekness--are graphically displayed. When it lies
close--and it moves rarely, and then with a gentle lateral swaying--the
fancy dress of seaweed is a garment of invisibility. It is far more true
to character alive than as a museum specimen, for its natural complexion
is a yellowish grey, the neutral tint of the blending of sand and coral
mud upon which it resides. The preserving fluid added a pinkish tinge to
the body and limbs. Blame, therefore, the embalmer for the
over-conspicuous form which is not in the habit of the creature as it
lived. Neither are the plumes those of pomp and ceremony, but merely the
insignia of self-conscious meekness--the masquerade under which the
shrinking crab moves about, creating as little din and stir as possible,
in an ever-hungry world. With such unfaltering art does it act its part
that it is difficult to realise the crab's real self unless aided by
mischance. Conscious of the terrors of discovery, it rocks to and fro,
that its plumes may sway, as it were, in rhythm with the surge of the
sea. Can there be such a thing as an unconscious mimic? If not, then the
portrait is that of an ideal artist.

Those who know only the great flat, ruddy crabs with ponderous pincers
and pugnacious mien, which frequent fish shop windows, can form but a very
unflattering opinion of the fancy varieties which people every mile of
the Barrier Reef.

The struggle for existence in this vast, crowded, and most cruel of
arenas is so appalling that the great crab family has been battered by
circumstances into weird and fantastic forms. Only a few come up to the