TWO CITIZEN CRABS OF NONSUCH 



days when his crew began to murmur and demand 

 to be allowed to turn homewards, the discovery of 

 crabs among the passing weed perhaps carried more 

 weight than we know. More scientific men than 

 Columbus would have thought that weed-inhabiting 

 crabs must be indicative of adjacent shores. 



Bermuda is not at the very center of the Sargas- 

 sum Sea but it is close to it, and so it is to be ex- 

 pected that day after day, golden patches or fields 

 of the weed drift past, or are blown upon the beaches 

 of Nonsuch. Here, untold hosts of the little wander- 

 ing crabs find their nemesis. The fish, the big swim- 

 ming crabs, and even the slow-moving shell-less 

 snails seem to sense the approach of disaster, and 

 desert the masses of weed as they drift shoreward. 

 But Planes are loyal to the last, and every windrow 

 of weed thrown up on the sand shelters dozens of 

 them. They live on for a time with no hope, for 

 when their floating home is again launched by a 

 high tide, it is dead, and sinks at once. And on the 

 shore, birds of all kinds gather and some, like the 

 turnstones, have learned to push and roll the weed 

 over and over, butting it with their heads, so that 

 the sanctuary of untold generations of crabs be- 

 comes useless. 



There is a bond between the weed and the crab, 

 more ancient than the similarity in color and pat- 

 tern. While the Sargassum Sea is now a going con- 

 cern, made up (according to a recent estimate) of 

 not less than twenty million tons of weed, this sea- 

 weed differs from most algge by having no roots and 



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