KING CRABS. 



inches in breadth. The male was little more than 

 half as large. They have two pairs of compound 

 eyes, a horse-shoe shaped cephalo-thorax, composed 

 of six segments, and an abdo- 

 men of nine segments, the last 

 of which forms a long spine, or 

 bayonet-like tail. Six pairs of 

 appendages are attached to the 

 cephalo-thorax, the hand and 

 opposing thumb of the first 

 pair being modified in the male, 

 to serve as clasping organs. It 

 is said that along the Florida 

 coast the eggs are laid in May, 

 being deposited by the mother 

 in the sand between the limits 

 of high and low tide. They 

 hatch in six weeks, the young 

 being but one-quarter of an inch 

 in length. At the end of a year 

 they are but one inch long, so that a specimen the 

 size of the one I measured must have been a hoary 

 patriarch. 



The king crabs burrow in the sand, and are said to 

 live mainly on sea worms, though the decaying bodies 

 of fishes and other aquatic animals probably furnish 

 them much food. They swim but clumsily, crawling, 

 for the most part, slowly along the bottom. They are 

 sometimes called "sauce-pans," on account of the 

 shape of the shield of the cephalo-thorax, which is 



Fig. 16 Horse-shoe 

 Crab. 



(Oreatly reduced.) 



