TWO CITIZEN CRABS OF NONSUCH 



time of the last moult. This, in technical parlance, 

 is the megalops stage, and it always seems to me to 

 correspond to the gawky period of youth, when by 

 length of trousers, hands in pockets and a very dis- 

 agreeable cigar the boy attempts to attain his idea 

 of manhood. 



Megalops has forever put behind him his infancy 

 swims. Of equal value with his eyes is the cloak of 

 invisibility which will lead many deadly enemies to 

 pass him by, and in this youthful stage of develop- 

 ment we see already well-established, the beginnings 

 of the mottlings, marblings, and the pale enamel of 

 the crab to come. His joy and pride must be his bare 

 limbs, still free from the feather-blades of the adult, 

 and his amazing claws which are long, curved, and 

 sharp-toothed like his pincers. There is no doubt 

 that the god of crabs intends to conserve his rem- 

 nant of a half dozen. It would need a hurricane to 

 dislodge this youngster when once he has taken hold 

 upon the weed. Like a stubborn, adolescent mus- 

 tache which exists chiefly in the imagination of its 

 owner, the elongated abdomen must be a continual 

 worry to Megalops. He strives to keep it bent and 

 curled under, but it is constantly slipping and flat- 

 tening into a hateful, lobsterine straightness. One 

 more moult and the carapace widens to full shield- 

 shape, the claws are reduced, the feather-blades 

 appear, and the unmistakable crab insignia — the 

 concealed abdomen — becomes an accomplished 

 fact. The biblical parable is reversed in the case of 

 these crabs : those which founded their homes upon 



195 



