Earlier there is some chance to act on him, when, as it were, the hermit-crab is looking for his shell; and later something may be done when the shell begins to wear and be uncomfortable; but when the coat is new, the only thing is to let him wear it while it fits him.

He lived upon limpets, hermit-crabs, and rain-water.

Here, in that morning's walk, I saw three little hermit-crabs, a limpet, and two ninnycocks in a pool of weeds under a bearded rock.

On flat tables were starfish lazying at full width, strewn shells, and hermit-crabs entering and leaving their captured homes.

The hermit-crabs drew my minute attention, and I anchored my canoe and with the lunette watched them by the hour.

When he felt growing pains the hermit-crab unhooked himself from his ceiling and migrated in search of a more commodious dwelling.

Small hermit-crabs in shells many sizes too big for them toddled about, land-crabs rushed frantically and awkwardly for their holes, and Portuguese men-of-war sailed by the coast, luffing to avoid casting up on the beach.

In some respects they remind one of the hermit-crab, who annexes some beautiful ready-made house, instead of making one for himself.

SHELLS AND HERMIT-CRABS.

One can scarcely avoid taking notice of the prodigious numbers of small hermit-crabs (Coenobita) tenanting dead univalve shells, and occurring from the margin of the beach as far back as the centre of the islands, where they are found even in the holes of decaying trees at some height above the ground.