Page:The aquarium - an unveiling of the wonders of the deep sea.djvu/248

Rh warriors of no mean prowess; two, at least, of these fell a prey to the fierce Fiddler. His manner of proceeding was regular and methodical. Grasping the unthinking Soldier by the thorax, and crushing it so as to paralyse the creature, he dragged the body out of the protecting shell. The soft plump abdomen was the bonne bouche; this was torn off and eaten with gusto, while the rest of the animal was wrenched limb from limb with savage wantonness, and the fragments scattered in front of his cave.

I saw him one day snap at a Prawn, but the elegant and agile animal was much too quick to be so caught: with a flap of its tail it shot away backward, and laughed its enemy to scorn.

There was a large Sea-worm, however (Nereis pelagica), a many-footed, Centipede-like creature, some seven inches long, that fared worse. The Fiddler seized the worm in one powerful claw, and began to gnaw it up as we do a radish: the writhings of the victim interrupted the epicure's enjoyment; he therefore took hold with the other claw also, and soon bit the body into two pieces, which continued to writhe and wriggle to the last. The giant's dinner in this instance lasted about an hour.

The Crabs are the scavengers of the sea; like the wolves and hyaænas of the land, they devour indiscriminately dead and prey. The bodies of all sorts of dead creatures are removed by the obscene appetite of these greedy Crustacea; and there is no doubt that many an enormous Crab, whose sapidity elicits praise at the epicure's table, has rioted on the decaying body of some unfortunate mariner. But what of that? Let