each other, few are more remarkable than the crabs, not only on account
of form and habit, but for care of themselves during the periodic casting
of their shells. They therefore represent an entertaining study and a
never-ending source of pleasure to the observer, who, as he happens on
some fantastic member of the family, wonders, remembering his
Shakespeare, what impossible matter will Nature make easy next. Dreamy
little ripples were laying on the strands sprays of seaweed, torn from
the reef which was not quite out of the influence of the easterly swell.
The conditions were ordinary, but one fragment made itself noticeable by
slight, almost undiscernible, but still distinctive efforts to regain the
water, whence it was separated by a few inches. Seaweed alone was visible
as it rested on the palm of the hand. Presently it moved hesitatingly and
with infinite slowness, and, being reversed, revealed itself as a
"watery" crab under living disguise. The specimen was sent to the
Australian Museum, Sydney, where it came under the hands of my friend
Mr. Allan R. McCulloch, who devotes himself to the phenomena of the sea;
and since his references to it are explicit and authoritative, they will
be more acceptable than generalities from an uninformed pen: "The crab you
sent is the second specimen known of ZEWA BANFIELDI, which I described
from a dried specimen received from you some years ago. Not only the
species, but the genus also, was unknown until you gave me the
opportunity of describing this interesting beast. It is one of the spider
crabs, or Oxyrhynchus, most of which have long horns projecting from the
rostrum, and are more or less thickly covered with stiff curled setae, to
which seaweeds, sponges, and other marine growths--selected according to
the taste of the bearer--are attached. When these crabs shed their shells,
which they must do periodically to allow of growth, they retire to a dark
corner and draw themselves out of a slit between the back and the
abdomen, legs and all, which must, I imagine, be a delicate and somewhat
painful proceeding. After emerging, they are, of course, quite soft, and