Good service was done to the cause of science when, some fifteen or twenty years since, Robert Ball of Dublin invented the naturalist’s dredge. A huge unwieldy form of the implement has indeed been long in use among fishermen for the obtaining of oysters and scallops; a clumsy affair, of which the frame, furnished only with a single lip, was four or five feet wide, and the bag was formed of iron rings, two inches in diameter,—a loose and open sort of chain-mail. There was an object in this last arrangement; for while the chain-work retained all oysters of a marketable size, the meshes allowed all to escape which were of less dimensions, and so these remained on the ground to grow bigger for another season.

Naturalists did gladly avail themselves of this uncouth apparatus, and many valuable things were scraped from the sea-bottom thereby; but they never could have used it without regret at the thought of the thousands of unknown and unimagined treasures which must have slipped through those huge meshes. No object of less size than two inches in any diameter had a chance of being brought to the surface; and how many precious specimens range below these dimensions we are now beginning to discover.

Yes; I’m glad I have got a Ball’s dredge; and this fair autumnal morning I mean to use it; to go out with honest Harvey, and scrape the stony sea-bottom in the offing yonder. It is a nice portable affair, that one hand can manage; eighteen inches by four and a half are the dimensions of the frame; the scraping lips are double, one on each edge, so that, however the dredge falls on the bottom, it is sure to scrape; a double bridle from each side meets in a ring to which the rope is made fast; and the bag, some twenty inches deep, is made of stout twine, well netted, with meshes about half an inch in diameter. Owing to the swelling of the twine in the water, there is scarcely anything of value that will escape such a net.

Harvey has carried down everything to Babbicombe Beach, and now all is on board; dredge, sieve, pans, buckets, jars, bottles, ad libitum. And now we run up the mainsail and jib, and with a light westerly breeze and smooth water, lie up for Exmouth, or a little beyond, for about an hour.

Now we have made our offing, and can look well into Teignmouth Harbour, the bluff point of the Ness some four miles distant, scarcely definable now against the land. We pull down sails, set her head for the Orestone Rock, and drift with the tide. The dredge is hove overboard, paying out some forty fathoms of line, for we have about twelve or fourteen fathoms’ water here, with a nice rough, rubbly bottom, over which, as we hold the line in hand, we feel the iron lip of the dredge grate and rumble, without catches or jumps. Now and then, for a brief space, it goes smoothly, and the hand feels nothing; that is when a patch of sand is crossed, or a bed of zostera, or close-growing sea-weeds, each a good variation for yielding.

“What d’ye say, Tom? Shall we try it?”

“Ay, ay, sir!”

Up comes the wet line under Tom’s strong muscular pulling, and as it leaves his hands, we coil it snug in the bows of the boat. Dimly appears the dredge some yards below the surface, and now it comes to light, and is fairly lifted aboard. “’Tis mortal heavy!” Well it may be, for here is a pretty cargo of huge, rough stones, great oyster-shells, and I know not what. Bright scarlets and crimsons and yellows I discern, and many a twinkling movement among the chaos raises our expectations of something good. We pick out the most conspicuous things, and now turn the whole contents bodily on this old shutter, which we have laid across two thwarts. ’Tis done; and now heave the dredge over again, and we are free to work at the mass with all our eyes and fingers.

The first thing that strikes attention from its size and brilliant colours is a great Sun-star.[113] This is a noble example of the Star-fish family, not uncommon off these shores. The disk of this specimen is two inches and a half wide, and the rays, which are here eleven in number (more commonly twelve) are one and three-fourths long, so that the total diameter of this fine creature is six inches. The upper surface is convex and cake-like, but can be plumped up at pleasure. Both disk and rays are studded with small whitish knobs, which seem simple to the eye, but when magnified are seen to be formed of short and close-set spines. They are not regularly arranged on the rays any more than on the disk. Slightly elevated ridges connect the knobs, thus covering the whole surface with a raised network.

The general colour of the disk is a fine rose-pink, deeper on a circular area in the centre; the network is a deeper rose, especially just around the bases of the knobs. The base of each ray is crossed by a broad band of pure white, both knobs and network. The remainder of the rays is of a pale orange-scarlet, becoming more truly scarlet in the middle portion; the network of the same hue, but deeper. Over the entire surface the areas of the net are occupied by series of ovate whitish hollows, from each of which protrudes a minute clear bladder or closed tube, exactly like those we lately saw in the little Starlet. The madreporic plate is seen about midway between the centre and one of the angles, as a tiny cake-shaped white body, grooved exactly like a brain-stone.

Beneath, the rays are ploughed with a deep groove, in which are two rows of sucker-feet; towards the tip, however, their place is supplied by long slender pointed tentacular processes. The avenues are bordered by flat knobs, set like the edging-stones of a garden walk, each of which carries five or six spines radiating like a fan, lengthwise. Each set sends off a branch which carries another fan placed transversely, of six to ten spines. Then the white satiny skin sends up at the very edge of the ray short stems, each bearing a group of fifteen to twenty spines, having a tendency to a transverse arrangement, but not in a single row. These form the edges of the rays, seen from above and below. At the bases of the rays beneath, the angle terminates in a broad plate, which is cut into a comb of about eighteen flat spines, the whole having a semi-oval outline, projecting towards the mouth. At the tip of each avenue we discern the little scarlet eye, well protected by the crowding rows of fans.

The mouth gapes, and gives an unexpected insight into the diet of this gaily-painted gentleman. We see a bit of an Echinus shell, and on taking hold of it with a pair of pliers, and carefully dragging, lo! forth comes the entire box of a Purple-tipped Urchin, nearly an inch in diameter, empty of course, through the force of Mr. Sun’s gastric juice, and denuded of spines. Ugh! the cannibal! to eat his own first cousin!

We put him into a shallow pan of water, where he crawls slowly. He is fond of curling the rays over his back, so as nearly to meet, perhaps to have a look at the new world in which he finds himself. Then he turns himself right over in the shallow water, bathing the under surface in the air, the suckers moving all the time to and fro with great rapidity, and (we fancy) with enjoyment.

Several specimens of the common Cross-fish occur, large and richly coloured, and many of the Urchin just named; but these we can find every day in-shore; so they are contemptuously thrown over the gunwale.

Ha! here is a fine thing! It is the Granulate Brittle-star,[114] a species said to be widely spread, but I never saw it before. It is confined to deep water. It is a very fine imposing species, reminding me (a strange comparison, you will say!) of the great South American hairy Spiders, with a brown body and long bristly legs sprawling over a width of eight or ten inches. Its hues are said to be various, but I will describe this as I see it.

The disk is a plump cushion slightly depressed in the centre, of a light reddish umber, or sand-brown. The base of each ray is rich red-brown, the colour encroaching on the disk with two points, and running down the medial line of the ray. This hue is bordered by velvety black, blending with it; and beyond the middle of the ray, the deepening brown is pretty well lost in the black. The ray is edged with spines standing out at right angles, and set in rows. These spines are black with grey points, and greatly augment the noble aspect of the creature. Each ray is about four and a half inches long, running off to a fine point.

The animal resents being turned over, and refuses to lie in a supine position, unlike the “malus pastor” of the poet. It curls and twists the slender ray-tips, crawls rapidly, and courses round and round the edge of the pan into which we have dropped it.

Let me anticipate here to narrate the after history of my captive. Consigned to a shallow tank at home, after a few days I missed him one morning, and on searching the whole room carefully, found him at length under the edge of the hearth-rug, some yards from the tank, with all his rays broken into many pieces, and only the short stumps remaining. Though dry and apparently dead, I perceived a slight movement in the stumps, which gave me hope of revival, and I replaced the poor maimed thing, sadly shorn of his glory, in the tank. He did revive; and the truncated ends of the ray-stumps enabled me to see the arrangement of the spines. These form about nine rows on each side, radiating fan-like; within the undermost row on each side is a row of flexible bladdery tubes much like the suckers, and like them protruding from orifices in the calcareous skeleton, but not retractile. They are studded with tiny warts, and terminate not in a sucking disk, but in a sort of bifid extremity. They are not used for locomotion, nor are they ordinarily applied to the ground as if tactile, and yet are continually thrown round so that the tip is brought up to the base, and this suddenly and abruptly, and every few seconds, as if something were captured and conveyed to the mouth; but this cannot be, for the mouth is not there, and nothing is seen to be seized. Perhaps some intelligence, in a way unimaginable by us, is thus obtained, of outward things.

The poor maimed creature managed to stump awkwardly about for a few days, but soon died, with no perceptible attempt to renew the self-amputated members.

The Brittle-stars appear to move by means of the flexibility of their long snake-like rays, the spines with which they are furnished enabling these organs to obtain a hold on the surface along which they crawl; and that so secure that even perpendicular and very smooth surfaces present no hindrance to their progression. They have no proper suckers; and the rays are not constituent portions of the body, containing part of the stomach and intestine as in the true Star-fishes, but imperforate appendages to it.

Crouching among the rubbish, with all its long limbs snugly packed together, as if hoping to find safety in being overlooked, we see a strange form of crustacea, the Angled Crab.[115] Vain hope! How can a creature of that bizarre form, and of those conspicuous colours, be concealed from notice by merely lying still? Gently touch him behind, and what an enormous length of limb is suddenly thrown out! If, according to the proverb, “kings have long arms,” surely this must be the very monarch of the crabs; and most curiously are they folded when at rest, the fore-arm lying close, throughout its length, upon the upper arm, the elbow projecting far on each side. The carapace is sometimes described as rhomboidal, but this does not give us a correct idea of its form; its outline is rather that of an isosceles triangle, of which the apical half is cut off; the base of this truncate triangle, which is the front side of the shell, runs off into two sharp spines at the angles, and has also a broad projection in the middle, on each side of which are seated the long footstalks of the eyes, and which carries on its front the two pairs of antennÆ. The thighs of the true legs are thin and blade-like, so that these limbs all pack one over the other very compactly.

Not uncommon with us, it is not very often seen even by the naturalist, as it seems to be properly an inhabitant of deep water. Occasionally it is washed ashore on the beach by a heavy sea; but this is accidental. Montagu first ascertained it to be British by finding it at Kingsbridge, near Plymouth. Mr. Couch finds it common on the Cornwall coast, together with an allied, but certainly distinct, species, the G. rhomboides of the Mediterranean, to be identified by its lacking a second spine behind each angular one, which is well marked in our species. Though essentially a southern form, it occurs on the Dublin coast, and that in sufficient number to have obtained a popular appellation,—that of “Coffin-crab;” the term “coffin” being possibly a word of the Irish tongue, meaning something very different from that which it suggests to our ears.

Cranch records, as a curious habit of the species, that “they live in excavations formed in the hardened mud, and that their habitations, at the extremities of which they live, are open at both ends.” This description implies a habitat above low water, if not above tide-marks; for where else could “hardened mud” be found? or if it were found in the deep water, how could it come under the observer’s cognizance? However, I know that many marine creatures are littoral in some localities, which are exclusively deep-water subjects in others.

Several observant naturalists have noticed the frequency with which the species is obtained from the stomachs of the larger ground-feeding fishes,—the cod especially. Mr. Ball has taken four at a time from a single cod in Youghal shambles. This is a well-known source for procuring rare specimens of the inhabitants of the deep, particularly Crustacea and the shelled Mollusca; for the fishes are expert and persevering and successful collectors of natural history, and are continually picking up objects for which the naturalist would almost give one of his eyes. Mr. Gordon of Elgin, some years ago, gave a long list of Crustacea, many of them of great rarity, which he had procured from stomachs of cod-fish, “through the agency of Widow Scott and her son John, of the fishing village of Stotfield,” on the Moray Firth. His remarks are suggestive, not only to those residing on the coast, but to the denizens of inland towns. “By a small douceur to the fisherman’s family, and by the assistance of the fish-curer on the coast, the fishmonger of the large town, or of some acquaintance in the fishing village, it is believed that almost any number of these now useless receptacles [viz., cod-stomachs], could be obtained. It may excite at first a little nausea to open up and examine these omnivorous reservoirs, but this will soon pass off; and were it of longer continuance than it is, the stores to be unfolded would amply compensate for all the disagreeable feeling that may for a time arise. It is not only the crustacean that is thus gathered from the inaccessible depths of the ocean, but often the rare shell, with its still rarer inhabitant. The radiated animal and the curious zoophyte will also be found congregated together there; all of them, no doubt, at times mutilated or partly digested, but not unfrequently fresh and complete, as if newly past the voracious jaws.”

Two or three specimens of another curious crab are also in our haul. Unlike the Gonoplax, the little Nut-crab[116] is not by any means conspicuous in a chaotic heap like this; it requires a sharp eye, and one familiar with the form, to discern him. Remarkably sluggish, he remains motionless; his tiny limbs are almost concealed under the edges of his shell; his body is destitute of sharp angles; its colour is a dull white: in fact the eye might roam over it a dozen times without supposing it anything more than an irregular rubbed quartz pebble.

Yet when you pick it up, it is a pretty little Crab. The form of the body is unlike that of any other of our genera; indeed the type of which it is a representative, though largely developed in the tropical and sub-tropical seas, scarcely reaches to our shores. Some of the allied species in the hotter parts of the globe, are very curious, such as the Calappa, a crab in which the very short limbs are so closely packed to the body, and so wholly concealed by the smooth and rounded shell, that the curious sailor often picks it up and pockets it, as a pretty white stone, little suspecting that he has a living Crab in his fob. And there it lies for hours, perhaps, till he pulls out his supposed pebble, which has not ventured all the while to attempt to crawl.

I believe almost all we yet know of the habits of the timid little Nut-crabs is derived from the portrait that I drew of one of them[117] some years ago, from specimens that I obtained at Weymouth. Since then I have repeatedly kept it in captivity for long periods at a time, and indeed I have one or two now. Yet I have little to add to the sketch I then drew of its manners. It is inert, folding its tiny legs on itself when touched, and remaining motionless for some time. It buries itself in the gravel, descending backwards: this is a somewhat slow process, suited to its usual phlegmatic habit. It brings its hindmost pairs of feet on each side together; then thrusting down their united points, opens and expands them, forcing apart the gravel; at the same moment the posterior part of the body is brought down into the hollow thus made, and the action of the feet is repeated. The process is continued until the hinder parts are covered and the muzzle alone is visible, with the two claws. Thus it sits quite still, reminding one of a toad, the broad triangular pedipalps that fit so close occasionally opening, like the folding-doors of a tiny cabinet, and allowing the palpi to be thrust out to wipe the minute eyes. The face, when examined with a lens through the glass walls of the aquarium, has a most funny expression, being singularly like that of an ancient man.

Like many marine animals, Ebalia uses the hours of the night as its chief season of activity. As long as the candles are in the room, it remains pretty still, but as soon as darkness reigns, it sets out on its travels. Not indeed with the railway pace of some of its fellows does our little ancient travel; he is but a “slow coach;” but he gropes about among the pebbles, and is usually found the next morning, buried at some distance from the point where the previous evening had left him.[118]

The little specimens before us appear to belong to Ebalia Bryerii. It is porcellaneous white, tinged with pale scarlet. The little feet are painted scarlet on a white ground, especially the swollen-jointed claws, which are very gay, and under a lens show a marbled pattern of rich scarlet. This little Crab has an unique appearance, very attractive. Its motions are quick and sudden, mostly lateral, when alarmed; but it is habitually sluggish. Sometimes it appears to sham death; for if pushed, it at first tries to escape by running; but if the annoyance continues, it stiffens its limbs, and allows itself to be pushed without resistance; and when laid on its back in the water, will lie motionless for a minute or more, then suddenly turn over and crawl away.

Hosts of other things we capture in this summary sweeping of the sea-bottom, and by the time we have drifted down towards the Orestone, till we are close enough to make out the noble leaves of the tree-mallows that grow out of its rocky heights, we have accumulated a marvellous store,—almost enough, indeed, to set up a little provincial museum. Brittle-stars and urchins; cucumbers great and small; bivalve and univalve mollusks; swollen ascidians, smooth and warty; active, shuffling, sucking fishes; heaps of mossy Bryozoa; long bristling tufts of Hydroid zoophytes; naked worms, twining and writhing amidst the mass, gleaming in purple and pearl; sea-mice “armed in gold,” like Virgil’s Orion; tangled masses of Serpula-pipes, every one with its scarlet-crowned tenant; these, and multitudes of creatures besides, come up from the teeming sea-floor, and all at once claim our bewildered attention. And there is not one of the host that is not worthy of it; not one that would not be an eloquent witness of its Creator’s glory; but we must for the present neglect them all (not without hope of another meeting with some of them at least), in order to devote a few moments to one group of remarkable interest.

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.

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.

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.

It had often been an interesting speculation with me, in what manner the due relation of size is maintained between the Adamsia and the shell, in the progressive growth of the former. There is a manifest proportion between the two, the young Cloaklet occupying a small shell, such as that of a Littorina or Trochus; the full-grown individual a large one, such as that of a Natica or Buccinum. The Crab is able to shift from a smaller to a larger shell when he needs enlarged accommodation; and since we know that his congener, P. Bernhardus, does this habitually, we naturally conclude that such is the habit of P. Prideauxii. Presuming then that this is the case, what becomes of the Adamsia? If the Crab shifts his quarters and leaves the Adamsia behind, the association is broken, and we should constantly find Paguri without AdamsiÆ, and AdamsiÆ without Paguri. But we find neither the one nor the other.

On the other hand, if Adamsia is able to shift its quarters also, how does it proceed in its search for a new shell? If it forsakes the old tenement at the same time as the Crab, and together with it takes possession of the new one, by what means is unity of will and action secured? What communication of thought takes place from the one to the other? As the Adamsia does not adhere to the Crab, but to the shell, that is, as they are independent of each other’s movements, who takes the initiative? Who goes to seek the lodging? And at what point of the transaction does the other come in? All these questions I had mused upon with interest; and at length received some light towards their solution.

On the 10th of January, 1859, I obtained, by dredging, in Torbay, a specimen of Adamsia palliata, about half-grown, on a rather small shell of Natica monilifera, tenanted by a Pagurus Prideauxii, which seemed already too big for his habitation. Having put them into a well-established tank of large dimensions, the contents of which were in excellent condition, I succeeded in doing what I had never done before, domiciliating both Crab and Adamsia. Both continued in the highest health, and became quite at home.

After about three months, however, I noticed that the Adamsia was not looking so well. One side or wing had gradually loosed its hold of the shell-lip, so that it hung loosely down beneath the breast of the Crab. Yet in other respects the zoophyte seemed healthy. Latterly, too, the Crab had manifested symptoms of uncomfortable straitness, in the great extrusion of his fore-parts; so great, indeed, as to expose even the front of the soft abdomen. Yet I felt reluctant to present to the Crab a larger shell, fearing that he would, in availing himself of it, desert his zoophyte friend, which would then die, and I should lose the specimen.

At length the desire to solve a problem in science prevailed over this feeling. A fact is better than a specimen. And so (on April 21st) I selected from my cabinet a full-grown Natica shell, and placed it on the tank-floor, not far from the disconsolate trio.

The Pagurus presently found the new shell, and immediately began to overhaul it. He did not do, however, as his brother Bernhard would have done, at once shift into the new house. Having turned it mouth upward, he took hold of the outer and inner lip, each with a claw, and began to drag it about the tank. Occasionally he relinquished the hold of one claw, and probed the interior in the usual manner, and then resumed his march. I watched the proceedings for an hour or more, when, having other work to do, I left him alone.

The thought did occur to me—Can this delay be intended to make the Adamsia cognizant of what is in contemplation, and to prepare it for the change? But I dismissed it as unlikely.

After about an hour’s absence I returned to the examination. The Pagurus was comfortably lodged in his new abode, and the old one, which now looked small indeed, lay deserted at some little distance. I eagerly turned the latter over, to see what was the condition of the Adamsia. Lo! no Adamsia was there; and the Pagurus, presently approaching the front of the tank, I saw, to my great gratification, that the old association was unbroken. There was the Adamsia, with one wing adhering to the lip of the new shell, and apparently the opposite wing also; but, from the position of the group, this I could not be quite certain of. The situation of the zoophyte was quite normal,—the centre immediately below the breast of the Crab, and in contact with the inner lip of the shell, while that wing which I could clearly see was creeping round upon the outer lip.

Examining now more closely the condition of things, with a lens, I saw that the central part of the Adamsia’s base was adherent by a small point of its surface to the under side of the thorax of the Crab, between the bases of the legs.

Now this adhesion to the Crab is a circumstance which, so far as I know, never takes place in the ordinary relations of the animals; and therefore I could not but think it an extraordinary and temporary provision for the removal of the Adamsia from the old to the new shell, and for the correct adjustment of its position on the latter.

How then can we avoid the conclusion, that, as soon as the Crab had found the new shell to be suitable for exchange, the Adamsia also was made cognizant of the same fact; and that, during the two hours which followed, the latter loosened its adhesion to the old shell, and, laying hold of the bosom of its protector, was by him carried to the new house, where immediately it began to secure the like hold to that which it had just relinquished?

Eleven days elapsed after the above observations were made, when I obtained another interesting fact bearing on this strange association. The Adamsia had not looked well since the change of residence; its adhesion to the shell had been but partial at the best, some days more, some days less, extensive; but for the most part a considerable portion of the zoophyte was hanging down from the shell. The Crab, on the other hand, was evidently in clover, and showed no inclination to go back to his old lodging.

On the 2d of May I found the Adamsia detached, and lying helpless on the bottom of the tank, beneath the Crab, who, when disturbed, walked off, leaving his companion behind. I thought now it was a gone case, and that it was all up with my elegant protegÉe.

An hour or two afterwards, however, how great was my surprise to see the Adamsia fairly established again, adhering to the shell by a good broad base, and looking more healthy than I had seen her for many a day! Strangely enough, she was adhering in a false position, having taken hold on the outer lip of the shell, instead of the inner, as usual. Here was a fresh proof of intelligence somewhere; and I at once set myself to find where.

Carefully taking up the shell with the aquarium-tongs, and bringing it close to the surface, but not out of water, I gently dislodged the Adamsia with my fingers, and allowed it to fall prone upon the bottom. I then released the shell with its tenant, and drove the latter towards the spot where the zoophyte lay.

No sooner did the Crab touch the Adamsia than he took hold of it with his claws, first with one, then with both, and I saw in an instant what he was going to do. In the most orderly and expert manner he proceeded to apply the Adamsia to the shell. He found it lying base upward, and therefore the first thing was to turn it quite round. With the alternate grasps of the two pincer-claws, nipping up the flesh of the Adamsia rudely enough, as it seemed, he got hold of it so that he could press the base against the proper part of the shell, the inner lip. Then he remained quite still, holding it firmly pressed, for about ten minutes; at the end of which time he cautiously drew away first one claw, and then the other; and, beginning to walk away, I had the pleasure to see that the Adamsia was once more fairly adhering, and now in the right place.

Two days after the Adamsia was again lost. On searching I discovered it lying in a crevice, whence I plucked it, and laid it on the bottom. Here again the Crab found it, and immediately went through the same process as last described, and again made it adhere. But I saw that the Adamsia was unhealthy, for it seemed to have but enfeebled power of retaining its hold. The manifestation of the mode in which the instinctive actings of the two creatures occur is, however, sufficiently clear. The Crab is certainly the more active promoter of the partnership; it is abundantly evident that he values the company of his elegant but very heterogeneous associate. These last observations compel the conclusion that the claws of the Crab are always employed in the transference of the Cloaklet from shell to shell.[122]

But what a series of instincts does this series of facts open to us! The knowledge by the Crab of the qualities of the new shell; the delay of his own satisfaction till his associate is ready; the power of communicating the fact to her; the power in her of apprehending the communication; her immediate obedience to the intimation; her relinquishment of her wonted hold, which for months at least had never been interrupted; her simultaneous taking of a new, unwonted hold, where alone it could have been of any use; the concerted action of both; the removal; her relinquishment of the transitory adhesion as soon as its purpose was accomplished; her simultaneous grasp of the new shell in the proper places; all these are wonderful to contemplate, wonderful considered singly, far more wonderful in their cumulation. Is there not here much more than what our modern physiologists are prone to call automatic movements, the results of reflex sensorial action? The more I study the lower animals, the more firmly am I persuaded of the existence in them of psychical faculties, such as consciousness, intelligence, will, and choice! and that, even in those forms in which as yet no nervous centres have been detected.