TWO CITIZEN CRABS OF NONSUCH 



Most convincingly human is the pair of claw legs 

 not used for locomotion, but as in ourselves, acting 

 as arms, hands, and fingers, which in a multitude 

 of ways simulate the movements and functions of 

 our own upper limbs. 



On Nonsuch Island, Bermuda, and in the waters 

 round about, there are quite fifty species of crabs. 

 Each has its particular niche in life and fills it to the 

 best of its ability, but only a bare half-dozen stand 

 out with any distinctness to our human vision and 

 imagination. Once crabs had become crabs there 

 seemed to be no limit to their evolution — to the 

 niches into which they could successfully mold 

 themselves. It was like the gift of flight to insects, 

 of song to birds, and of brain to man. Just as every 

 individual Babbitt is a relative success in his own 

 small, particular field, so we might reverse our 

 glasses and see worthy accomplishment in every 

 species of crab. But let us rather sweep the field 

 with a coarse net and see what comes up, and select 

 only those exceptional ones which catch the eye at 

 first glance. 



The original home of all crabs (and for that mat- 

 ter of all human beings ) is the sea, and today there 

 are tiny crabs which spend their lives floating and 

 swimming on the surface Hundreds of miles out at 

 sea, and there are giants with a ten-foot spread of 

 legs which stalk about in utter darkness on the bot- 

 tom of the abyssal depths. Nonsuch crabs show 

 every extreme phase of life. In the water there are 

 Floaters, Swimmers, and Bottom Walkers ; on land 



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