At the Water’s Edge 
my approach; they even tumbled over each 
other in their anxiety to get away. So dense 
were they that the very ground seemed to be 
slipping off, as they fled away, and their innu- 
merable bodies rustled curiously through the salt 
grass. While the males are armed with a formid- 
able apparatus that looks like a pair of slender 
ivory nippers about one inch long or more, for 
seizing their prey, the females are provided with 
only a very diminutive weapon of this sort; 
depending, probably, upon their powers of per- 
suasion for holding their victims; a peculiarity 
not confined to crustaceans. My attention 
was called to this swarm of crabs by seeing the 
ground riddled with holes, as if punctured by a 
cane, and about three inches deep ; and, as I 
followed them up, the crabs dropped into these 
holes like pool-balls into a “ pocket.’’ After 
standing still a minute, I could see them pop- 
ping their heads out all around me, and, if I 
moved at all, drop back again. At Cape May 
I afterward found acres of them, sunning them- 
selves on the muddy flats, and along the inlets. 
They are called ‘‘ fiddler crabs ”? from the awk- 
ward way in which they hold their prehensile 
apparatus high in the air as they run along ; 
which, with their motion sideways, is about as 
181 
