ARTHROPODA 



77 



their claws. The crabs will drop off if the bait be raised out of the 

 water. Sometimes two or three or even more crabs will be taken 

 with one sweep of the net. With a dozen or less lines one person may 

 keep continually at work and if the crabbing be good he will soon 

 have more than he can carry home. The soft-shell crab does not allow 

 itself to be thus easily captured, and hence is more of a luxury. Being 

 unprotected with a hard shell it seeks safety by hiding itself under the 

 sea-grass, etc., at the bottom, where it must be sought with a long 

 handled net or by wading along the shore where the water is shallow. 



FIG. 54. Common rock crab, Cancer irroratus. x%. 



The hard-shell crab is usually cooked by throwing it alive into boil- 

 ing water, after which the meat, with the exception of certain parts, is 

 picked out, seasoned and then baked, either in cakes or in the cleaned 

 shells of the crab; such "deviled" crabs are very common in all parts of 

 the country that are at all accessible to the coast. The soft-shell crabs 

 do not have to be removed from their shells, but are eaten shell and all. 

 Like some other sea-foods, crab meat, unless carefully prepared, quickly 

 spoils and causes violent sickness. 



Like our other supposedly inexhaustible resources, the crabs have 

 begun to become scarce, so that certain laws as to size, closed seasons, 

 berried crabs, licenses for fishermen, etc., have been passed to protect 

 this important industry before it is too late. 



