Page:Sea and River-side Rambles in Victoria.djvu/53

34 of Mr. Reeves in his Monograph on this genus, that "It is a curious. circumstance in the Geography of the Haliotideæ, that few, if any, are to be found where Chitons (Boat Shell) abound, as if they exchanged places to a certain extent in the two hemispheres -" and we have found as he has, that both these genera do inhabit not only the same latitudes, but almost precisely the same localities, the Chitons being common in the rock pools on the coast, the Haliotideæ remaining only in deeper water, feeding occasionally on shore vegetation.

The author of the "Curiosities of Food," mentions that the natives of most of the islands in the Chinese seas dry the soft parts of a species of this animal as an article of food.

It is here may be found, in some of the deep holes, that singular creature called the Pagurus, or Hermit Crab, from its invariably inhabiting the empty shells of some of the Mollusca; the body and tail are wanting the usual shelly covering, or possess it but in a rudimentary state, and have only a membranous bag for their protection. We well remember the surprise we felt on first beholding a specimen of this strange Crustacean which had been captured by a gentleman whilst Cray-fishing somewhere in this locality, and we were at first inclined to think it was undergoing the process of the periodical moult, after the habit of its kind, the new shell being only in a semi-developed state, but a careful search subsequently along the sea-shore revealed numerous individuals in the same rudimentary condition, ensconced generally in the water-worn habitation of the Fusus, or Spindle-shell,