WATER'S-EDGE IN HAITI 



its front pincers is larger than the other. It is 

 easy for us to imagine how exciting it must be to 

 watch one's figure alter after each molt ; to hold up 

 one's hands and see one of them growing larger and 

 larger, while the other stays unchanged. It is 

 fortunate that at least one remains unaltered, 

 for the great claw is more in the way than it is 

 useful. WTiile the body of the crab is dark grey, 

 exactly the color of damp sand, the enormous 

 claw is of a conspicuous ivory-white. 



If a man of average size and weight changed a 

 pair of mittens every week, and developed along 

 the lines of a male fiddler, his hand would finally 

 measure ten feet in length and weigh sixty pounds. 

 With such a handicap (no pun intended), he would 

 surely have trouble at a lunch counter. 



Day by day now, the growing fiddler leaves its 

 burrow and follows the tide up and down the beach, 

 feeding on all the flotsam and windrows of dead 

 and living creatures and the algse manna spread 

 twice a day by some benignant god of fiddlers. If 

 our crab is hungry, he must envy the lady fiddlers 

 who shovel the food up with both hands, while he 

 must lug the great claw about, and ply his single 

 little spoon as best he may. 



Our fiddler, whether right or left handed, is now 

 finally started upon his way of life. Up to this 

 time he has been the plaything of wind and wave, 

 tossed and tumbled about, snatching at whatever 

 bits of food fate sent him, — ^with as much conscious 

 will and power of choice as a rolling stone. 



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