120 OUT OF DOORS. 



THE OBEEN GRAB. 



Of all the animated denizens of our sea-shores, there is 

 perhaps none more generally familiar than the common 

 green crab, or shore-crab as it is also popularly termed — 

 the Carcinus Mcenas of naturalists. Whether at high 

 or low water, at ebb or flow, hiding under overshadow- 

 ing weeds or craftily sunk beneath the sand, this quaint, 

 waddling, green-backed crustacean is to be found, 

 equally active, and equally pugnacious. With the 

 exception of children, who are always delighted with the 

 odd manoeuvres of the creature, people mostly look upon 

 it with contempt, partly because it is too small to hurt 

 them much, and partly because it is not particularly 

 worth eating, having hardly anything inside its olive- 

 green shell, and the little that there is not being well- 

 flavoured. Yet beneath that unprepossessing exterior 

 is concealed a vast fund of interest, and the visitor to 

 the sea-side wiU find himself well repaid by watching 

 the habits of our olive-coloured friend. 



The best time and place for observing the green 

 crab in the fulness of its energies is just before high 

 tide. Just at the edge of the advancing waters, crabs 

 rise out of the sand in all directions, like the warriors 

 sprung from the dragon's teeth, and, as if to complete 



