AflD 



AMONG our first acquaintances of the sea-shore are sure 

 to be a number of merry little sprites which do not 

 seem to have yet mastered the lesson of walking straight 

 ahead. Their movements will be seen to be in a direction at 

 right angles to that towards which the head points. It is a 

 very interesting sight to watch these apparently one-sided 

 creatures hurrying off in their lateral progression towards 

 their burrows in the sand or mud, or in quest of food. Pass 

 them, and you will be surprised to see how quickly some of 

 them will reverse their motion, seemingly without so much 

 as pausing to glance at their pursuer, their machinery appear- 

 ing to have given out at one end, thus compelling them to 

 reverse and travel back over their old courses. 



These little Fiddler- or Calling-crabs, as they are termed, 

 are the most pronounced offenders against the commonly- 

 accepted rule of proper walking. Scattered all over the 

 salt marshes and mud-flats, at about high-water mark, 

 may be noted their burrows, which are about as large as a 

 thrust made by an umbrella point, and from which can be 

 frequently seen the little animal peeping forth, preparatory 

 to making a sally. At another part of the flat, where the 

 noise of your footsteps has not given signals of danger, 

 hundreds of crabblings are busy with their out-door occupa- 

 tions. Draw near to them, and away they scamper to their 

 dwellings, males and females intermingled promiscuously, the 

 former recognizable by the undue development of one of the 

 claws, which is carried transversely in front of the head. 

 When the animal is provoked, this claw is brandished in a 



