the rock, then darting to the top of the tank, and down again upon the pebbles. Scores of times these movements were repeated, until I felt alarmed for her safety, and annoyed at my inability to relieve her sufferings. But aid from me being impossible, I felt compelled, though very unwillingly, to allow nature to take its course. On looking into the aquarium one morning, I observed some strange object protruding from the fish. The little creature, too, on catching sight of me, came to the side of the tank, near to where I stood, and by her movements asked me, as plainly as any dumb animal could ask, to give her my assistance. After a few minutes spent in a 'brown study', I resolved to grant her petition, and immediately setting to work, drew from her--what? what do you suppose, reader? In truth neither more nor less than the body, head, and long antennæ of the 'martyr' Hermit-Crab! whose late sudden disappearance was now fully accounted for. There are ten British species of Lobster-Crab, but one only, _P. Bernardhus_, to which the reader has been introduced, is common to our shores. CHAPTER VI. Exuviation of Crustacea. (THE PHENOMENA OF CRABS, ETC., CASTING THEIR SHELLS.) 'As Samson at his marriage propounded a riddle to his companions to try their wits thereon, so God offereth such enigmas in Nature, partly that men may make use of their admiring as well as of their understanding; partly that philosophers may be taught their distance betwixt themselves, who are but the lovers, and God, who is the giver of wisdom.'--INTRODUCTION TO CONCHOLOGY, page 384. VI. The Armory of the Tower of London forms, it is generally admitted, one of the most interesting sights of the great metropolis. No one can look without wonder upon that goodly array of knights and noble warriors, nor help an involuntary sigh over the degeneracy of modern humanity. Though the figures before us are technically and irreverently termed 'dummies,' the hardened shell with which their body and limbs are cased we know has felt the throb of many a true English heart, maybe, glistened beneath the sun at Cressy and Agincourt, or perhaps on the bloody fields of Worcester and Marston Moor. It requires no great power of the imagination to transport ourselves to bygone centuries, and listen to the ring of hostile arms, the sepulchral voices of men whose heads are inurned in casques of steel, blended with the clash of battle-axes, the whizz of arrows, the neighing of steeds, the rattle of musketry, and at intervals the deep booming cannon's roar.