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SPIDERS OF THE SEA.

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By C. F. HOLDER.

QUITE a number of years ago an old gentleman, while walking through a large market in one of the southern cities, stopped before a booth bearing the sign, "Shedders, Shrimps, and Hard-shells." In a box, reposing on soft beds of seaweed, were layers of crabs all busily engaged, so it seemed, in blowing bubbles that glistened in the sun with many rich tints and colors. Some of the hard-shells had numbers of eggs attached to them, and as the old gentleman stood looking at them, the thought entered his mind, "Why not start a crab-farm and save all the trouble of fishing for crabs?"

A BABY-CRAB.

As he was a very enterprising old gentleman, the project was forthwith put into execution. An immense floating tank was built, through which the water was allowed to flow in and out; and in this hundreds of crabs carrying eggs were placed. An old colored man was engaged to attend to their wants, and in a short time he reported that the bottom of the tank contained numbers of very small empty shells, but that no young crabs were to be seen. The crab-farmer thereupon took some of the water out in a glass jar, and found to his surprise that it contained vast numbers of hideous little creatures with enormous horns. Here, then, was the trouble; the horned animals were eating the eggs, thought the old gentleman. So the colored man was directed to strain them out, and did so with such effect that they soon disappeared.

Not until the crab-farm had been given up as a failure by the old gentleman, did he learn that these same little horned animals that he had worked so hard to get rid of were the young crabs themselves.

He was not the only person that has been so deceived, however. Only half a century ago these little horned creatures were considered separate and distinct animals, until finally a naturalist made the discovery that they were the crabs themselves, in one of the curious early stages of their growth.

Soon after ieaving the egg, the baby-crab, with its queer horns, is apparently seized with violent convulsions, and in a moment wriggles out of its skin and appears in an entirely new guise, called the "large-eyed" stage. The new shell hardens

at once, and a few moments later the crab may be seen swimming about as before. The eyes are still enormous, and what were swimming legs in the first stage are now assistants in preparing food, the horns having almost disappeared.

Soon other curious convulsions occur, not, however, so violent as the first,-and the little animal slowly works itself out of its skin again, and sinks securely upon the bottom, where in two days a new shell has hardened, and its existence as a regular crab commences,-all the changes, in some species, having occurred during four days. Such is the babyhood of crabs in general throughout the world.

On the beaches of the Middle States the sandcrabs and "calling-crabs" are the most common, and in Normandy the sand-crabs are the means of great sport to the frequenters of the beach. A number are caught and decorated with the colors of their captors, who arrange them in a row, each keeping a finger on the back of his champion. At the word "Go," they release them, the entire body of crabs rushing down the beach in a headlong, or endwise, race to the sea, the owners following eagerly after them to note the first crab that reaches the water and to claim the prize.

These crabs live in holes in the sand, and at the beginning of winter pass into a deep sleep, called hibernation; in the spring they dig their way out, showing great skill as miners.

But it is as articles of food that crabs are most valued. Thousands of barrels of them are sent to the markets of the great cities; and in southern countries they take the place of the lobster. In the United States the great green crab, hard or soft, is preferred for the table.

The most noted locality for catching them is the waters of Chesapeake Bay, in the extensive mud flats about the mouth of the James River. The process of "treading" for them consists in walking over the flats, feeling with bare feet for the soft-shell crabs; and as there is a strong belief among the darkies who do the treading, that a soft-shell crab is always guarded by a hard-shell mate, the walking is not free from suspense. The soft-shell is easily felt and lifted up by a dexterous movement of the toes, or by a scoop-net; but sometimes the inquisitive foot of the treader interrupts a meeting of hard-shells, and a few nips from these are enough to make the agonized treader hurry into his skiff as rapidly as possible.

The hard-shell crabs are caught in deeper and clearer water. An iron barrel-hoop with mosquito netting bound upon it constitutes the net, which, when baited and lowered into the water, is soon filled with the pugnacious fellows. When hauled in they cling to one

another, those lease those withtenacity to the are packed in sea-weed and to Balti

more, in queerlooking, doublesailed boats; and

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city, they are shipped to various other throughout the country. The softis one that has just molted, or comits shell and the coverings of its joints. Off the coast of Scotland the crab fisheries are almost as important as those of the lobster on our own shores. But in Scotland, when the crabs are caught, they are marked or branded by their owners and tossed into a single car, which when full is towed to the nearest market. By the upsetting of one of these cars, it was discovered that the crab had a decided love for home, or special localities. A car alongside the dock at Falmouth,

HARD-SHELL CRABS HOLDING ON TO ONE ANOTHER.

England, was broken up by a vessel, and all the marked crabs made their escape. A few days later, however, great numbers of them were retaken at Lizard Point, where they had been caught origi

and it would be hard to tell whether the man or the crab was the more terrified.

Those of the ST. NICHOLAS readers who live in the vicinity of Boston will find a fine specimen of this great sea-spider, though not of the largest size, in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Surpassing even the great Japanese crab in strength, however, is the famous palm, or robber crab, of the Indian Ocean, a land hermit that exceeds two feet in length. In the Spice Islands they are considered great delicacies, and at Hila, Professor Bickmore saw two at the house of the assistant resident that were being fattened for the table like pigs. The palm-crab is found in

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THE GREAT JAPANESE CRAB.

nally. After escaping from the car and into the water, they had traveled back to their sea-home, a distance of eleven miles from Falmouth.

Among the most remarkable and the largest of crabs is one which is highly esteemed in Japan as an article of food. Its chief claws are each five feet in length, measuring from ten to twelve feet between the tips of the nippers, and presenting an astonishing spectacle when entangled in the nets and hauled aboard the boats. The body is almost triangular and comparatively small. With their slow, measured movements and powerful weapons of defense, these crabs are the giants of the spiders of the sea. Professor Ward, who has collected them in Japan, states that they have a remarkable habit of leaving the water at night and crawling up the banks of the river, presumably to feed, and that there they are sought by the crab-hunters. A story is told of a party of fishermen who had camped out upon the river bank, and one of whom aroused the others in the night by yells and screams. Running to the spot, they found that one of these monster crabs in wandering over the flats had accidentally crawled over the prostrate fisherman. He awoke with the great claws moving about him,

A ROBBER-CRAB LIFTS A GOAT FROM THE GROUND.

the cocoa-nut groves, living in holes beneath the trees and subsisting upon the fruit, tearing the husks from the nuts with its powerful claws and conveying it to its nest for use as a lining, or bed.

The nests are often pillaged by the Malays, who
use the shreds of husks in calking their vessels
and in the manufacture of mats and various arti-
cles. The palm-crabs possess no little intelligence,
as they always open the end of
the cocoa-nut that contains the
eye-spots; shred by shred the
husk is torn away, and finally,
when the eyes appear, the crab
hammers them repeatedly with
its large claw until an opening is
made. Sometimes the crab will
secure so firm a hold upon the
nut with its large claw that it can
dash it against a rock until the
nut-shell is broken.

The robber-crab of the Samoan Islands, called the "Ou Ou," adopts still another method.* It first ascends the tree and brings down the fruit; then, after husking it, the crab returns again to the tree and hurls or drops the nut to the ground until it is broken. One naturalist tells of a robber-crab that seized a goat by the ears as it was passing along under a tree, and fairly lifted it from the ground.

There is another crab which is equally powerful, and Captain Mosely informed the late Mr. Darwin, that upon confining one in a tin cracker-box it forced down the edges of the metal, punching numerous holes through the tin, and ultimately escaped. In appearance they resemble huge spiders. They stand a foot or more from the ground, and brandish their enormous claws with a clattering noise as they move along, a warn ing to all intruders. They deposit their eggs in the sea.

cedars, the nest being merely a mass of dried twigs dropped upon the tree in the rudest manner possible. When the young bird is hatched, it is kept well supplied with small fishes by the parent noddy;

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PIRATE-CRABS STEALING A FISH FROM A YOUNG SEA-BIRD.

The common hermit-crabs, to which the robber-crabs are related, are found both on land and in the sea, and I have frequently seen a large hermit-crab near Loggerhead Key, Florida, carrying about a heavy shell with perfect ease. In some places, the beach is almost entirely formed of shells, each the home of a land hermitcrab, and I have often watched the hermit-crabs of Bird Key during the breeding season of a sea-bird called the Noddy, when a continual struggle for food is carried on between them and the birds. The Noddy builds its nest upon the low bay

but the arrival of these luxuries is closely watched by a horde of pirate-crabs. The large purplebacked land-crab crawls from holes in the sand; the red-tinted fellow known as the Grapsus appears as if by magic, while innumerable hermitcrabs with shells of every conceivable pattern move onward toward the nest. Some climb neighboring bushes, or low trees, and drop down upon the baby-bird; others ascend the trunk of the

*On the authority of Mr. T. H. Hood, in his "Notes on a Cruise in H. M. S. 'Fawn' in the Western Pacific."

tree, until finally every branch and twig about the nest is occupied by a robber-crab, while the young bird, with wing erect, vainly endeavors to retain the fish. It is soon in the claws of the advancing

THE LAND-CRABS' MARCH TO THE SEA.

throng, that, closing in from all sides, unites in a general battle, in which the piratical crabs fall in a shower to the ground, where the combat is renewed, and the largest crab finally bears away the game.

The Grapsus displays no fear of the young bird, and a well-known scientist once saw a crab of this kind capture and carry off the young noddy itself.

The purple, or land-crab, is found all over the world, and in the West India Islands they commit great ravages upon the plantations of sugar-cane. On some of the more unfrequented islands in May

or June, these crabs make a remarkable pilgrimage. They live for the greater part of the year upon the high lands several miles from the sea; but once a year, at the season named, they leave their holes, and move at night in vast columns, often three miles long and two hundred and fifty feet wide, to the sea, where they deposit their eggs.

Nothing seems to deter this great army; the march being kept up with an undaunted perseverance that overcomes all obstacles. At this time they are caught in large numbers for the table, as on the return march to the hills they are in poor condition, and soon undergo the molting process.

One of the most interesting examples of intelligence among the sea-crabs, is that of a hermit-crab, which seems to have a perfect understanding with a seaanemone, that fastens itself upon its shell, and shares the food the crab may capture. This might be considered an accidental occurrence, were it not that the crab proves its friendship by assisting the anemone to move to its new shell, when, by reason of its growth, the crab has to change its quarters; and if the anemone is not satisfied with one shell, the crab tries others until its friend is suited.

A similar friendship exists between another hermit-crab, found in the Mediterranean Sea, and an anemone which accompanies it. In this case the friendship is not altogether disinterested, as the anemone is used as a decoy by the wily crab, which gives it board, lodging, and traveling accommodations, in return for its services.

The crabs, called by scientists Dromia, encourage the growth of various animals and plants upon their backs, and the spider-crab of our own shores known as the decorator, is invariably found bearing upon its back a thick growth of sea-weed, placed

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