NONSUCH 



orange and yellow, set off by a cape of rich plum 

 color, shading into purplish black, the legs being 

 bright red. They dig deep for succulent grass roots 

 and spend much of their time pulling off the stems 

 and mumbling the broken ends like children with 

 all-day-suckers. They are comical enough at best, 

 but when a crab holds a straw in one of his claws 

 and sucks vigorously at it, all he needs is a country 

 store and a bottle of pop in front of him to per- 

 sonify utter rural idleness. They sometimes pull at 

 a grass stem so hard that when it gives way unex- 

 pectedly they tumble over backwards. After one 

 such accident I saw a neighboring male rush at his 

 companion, but the other was up and on guard in 

 an instant. Both threatened with a movement curi- 

 ously like the preparatory weaving of a boxer's 

 arms — it was the upward feint of a fiddler crab 

 executed circularly. 



I cut off the retreat of one of these crabs as I 

 walked along a cedar-lined path. For a moment he 

 stood his ground and from a two-inch height he 

 threatened me with waving claws. But I defied him 

 and placed my foot over his hole. Only one trick of 

 escape remained — to sidle beneath a patch of grass 

 and try to become a bit of parti-colored shadow. I 

 closed down on him and held both claws helpless 

 between finger and thumb. Like Humpty Dumpty, 

 he has a cephalothorax, that is, his head is merged 

 immovably into his shoulders and body. He could 

 not turn his neck and look at me, but Nature plays 

 fair, and he cocked up his periscope eyes and 



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