1224 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



Without pronouncing an opinion as to the quality of 

 our friend's pun, or the accuracy of his observation, there 

 is no doubt that crabs will watch oysters like a cat does a 

 mouse-hole, that they will climb over banks, enter drains, 

 and squeeze themselves through traps, to obtain the food 

 they are so fond of. 



A writer on the subject, referring to the French grounds, 

 lately stated that the most deadly of the oyster's enemies 

 there were crabs, called by the French cancres maud its, for 

 they may be seen prowling about everywhere seeking for 

 young oysters to crunch and devour. " At times they seem 

 to do it for the pure pleasure of destruction ; they have been 

 watched taking the infant oysters in their pincers, and 

 cracking them one after the other as fast as they could. 

 Or, if the oyster is too big and strong to be crushed to death, 

 a crab will lie quietly by until the valves open, when, quick 

 as lightning, in goes his big claw as a wedge, to be followed 

 by the smaller one, with which the oyster is pinched out 

 and eaten piecemeal. Then, when crabs have nothing else 

 to do, they get together in bands to dig holes, carting away 

 the sand or mud on their backs. This buries the oysters, 

 and kills them in great numbers." The same writer adds 

 in another place, that " the black worms silt up the mud, 

 and crabs scratch it over the oysters." It is a fact, that 

 during a short time of neglect a million of oysters were 

 thus smothered in one preserve in Brittany. 



In most oyster-culture establishments the young brood 

 are placed on trays in a sort of cage, which is covered with 

 wire gauzework, or close network, to protect them from the 

 crabs. The French call these cages " ambulances" and 

 they were instituted in France on account of the depreda- 

 tions of Us cancres maudits. 



