Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/211

164 aggressor as swiftly inserted his own body, leaving the miserable sufferer struggling in the agonies of death.

The association which often exists between animals of different races and even of different classes, is always a curious phenomenon; and the motives which impel to the companionship, no less than the mode in which acquaintance is first formed, are most recondite. When this species (Pagurus bernhardus) inhabits the shells of the Whelk, it is quite common, though by no means universal, to find the spire of the shell occupied as the seat of that very fine Anemone, ''Act. parasitica'', which rears its tall and stout form like a thick pillar, surmounted by its dense fringe of tentacles that wave, brush-like, with every vagrant movement of the Crab.

But I find that this association is not the only one that exists here. While I was feeding one of my Soldiers by giving him a fragment of cooked meat, which he having seized with one claw had transferred to the foot-jaws, and was munching, I saw protrude from between the body of the Crab and the Whelk- shell the head of a beautiful Worm, Nereis bilineata, which rapidly glided out round the Crab's right cheek, and, passing between the upper and lower foot-jaws, seized the morsel of food, and, retreating, forcibly dragged it from the Crab's very mouth. I beheld this with amazement, admiring that, though the Crab sought to recover his hold, he manifested not the least sign of anger at the actions of the Worm. I had afterwards many opportunities of seeing this scene enacted over again; indeed, on every occasion that I fed the Crab