At The Aquarium.

Wben the decorator crab gets too big for its shell, it does what mauy other shellfish do - it sbeds it, emerging with its new shell already forzned, but at that stage of lts growth pliable and not mnch thioker than paper. In its soft shell state it is oomparatively defenselets, and it keeps ont of the way of other shellfish if it can, but its new shell soon hardens, and then it goes about in its accustomed manner. The decorator increaaes greatly, perhaps a third in size, alraost immediately after leaving its old shell, which it scarcely seenis possible it could ever have inhabited, but it gets out of the old shell nevertheless -without daruaging it and leaving it often disposed in a most lifelike form. The deoorators at the aquarium are fed separately, so that each will be sure to get its portion. The f ood is put down to them on the tip of a little stick, which is shaken gently over them, and the f ood, thus detached, falls within the crabs' grasp. There is no current in the balanoed tanks in which the smaller decorators are, and anything dropped in the water drops straight down. The other day there were found in one of these tanks, clinging to the ulva, two decorators, which were supplied, as usual, by placing their food in the water where they would be sure to get it. Being somewhat nressed for time that day, however, tbe.man who fed them did not wait to see the crabs actually eat. He placed their food within reach and trusted them to do the rest. But glancing in at this tank on his return from feeding the small fishes and things in the other balanced tanks he saw the two decorators that he had found on the ulva still there and in precisely the same attitudes as before, and then he realized that they were not live crabs, but sheddings. He had been feeding empty shells. On taking them out of the tank he found inside of one of them the fragment of food which he bad dropped for it, which had fallen into it through the opening between the upper and the lower part of the shell which the crab had made in getting out. It may be that the two decorators f ormerly residing in these shells, but now secure in some distant part of the tank with new shells hardening on their backs, smiled as they thought of the feeding of their empty sbells. It is certain that the man who fed them smiled as he arranged them for preservation in