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As an offset to all this bad feeling and bloodshed, it is a sad sight to see the little Hermit when his time comes to die. However droll his career may have been, he is now very grave, for he knows he must part with life and all its joys and pleasures. Who can explain the strange fact? The poor little fellow comes out of his house to die. Yes, to die. To us humans home is the only fit place to die in, but to Eupagurus it has no attractions at this solemn time. Poor fellow! With a sad look and a melancholy movement he quits of his own will the house for which he fought so well. Those feelers that often stood out so provokingly, and that were quite as often poked into everybody’s business, now lie prone and harmless; the eyes have lost their pertness, and dead, stone dead, the houseless Hermit lies upon that moss-covered rock.

There are two species of Hermit-crab occurring on our coast, which are readily distinguishable from each other by their size and the difference in the shape of the big claw. Eupagurus pollicaris, the Warty Hermit, is the larger species. He inhabits the shells of the big Naticas and the Fulgurs, and can be easily recognized by his coarse, broad claws, which close up in great part the aperture of the shell which he occupies. In the more common form, Eupagurus longicarpus, which seldom attains a length exceeding an inch, the legs are all much elongated, giving the animal a very slender appearance.