98 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



be " pocket-books," but some that I have eaten 

 were quite as good as any of the white fellows. 

 An expert can tell by squeezing the crab 

 whether the shedding period is near. If within 

 a few days of the time, the crab is put into a 

 car with others supposed to be in about the 

 same condition. It might be thought that 

 soft-shelled crabs ought to be cheap if they 

 can be hatched out in this easy fashion. The 

 trouble is that eternal vigilance is the price of 

 the soft-shell crab. Every fisherman has to 

 watch his crabs night and day if he wishes to 

 save his soft-shell crabs from being eaten by the 

 other crabs. Until within five hours of the 

 shedding, the crab retains his activity and vo- 

 racity, when he will fall upon any thing eat- 

 able ; then comes a period of stupor, and then 

 the old shell is thrown off, leaving a perfect 

 crab, one size larger, but soft and helpless. If 

 all the other crabs in the box are not equally 

 helpless, the new soft-shell fares no better than 

 in Washington Market. My friend, the Cap'n, 

 examines his crabs at six in the morning, at 

 noon, at six o'clock at night, and often again at 

 midnight, when he has a large number of " shed- 

 ders " on hand. Moreover, a crab gets hard so 



