60 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



baited with a fruit of which this land crab is very fond. Often 

 they are kept alive and fattened for the market. Once a year 

 these Violet land crabs form in immense processions, a mile or 

 more in length sometimes and over 100 feet in width. In this 

 order they march down to the sea, and deposit their eggs. At 

 other times they are nocturnal in habit, and come out of their 

 burrows only to feed at night. Late in the evening I have seen 

 them sitting at the entrances of their subterranean abodes, 

 waiting for the deeper shades of night. They have large, power- 

 ful claws, which they use with great effect. After taking a hold 

 with their big, merciless pincer, the limb suddenly becomes de- 

 tached, and while you are doing your best to free yourself of the 

 instrument of torture, the crab, minus its claw, makes off to its 

 burrow. 



Another very interesting crab is the famous Hermit or Soldier 

 crab, of the Atlantic coast. In these the abdominal portion of 

 the body is soft, and to protect this the animal runs it, tail first, 

 as it were, into any dead and empty shell of suitable size and 

 spiral form. In this the Hermit lives, with only his fore parts 

 protruding, until he outgrows his house, when he quits it, to 

 scramble into another of more convenient proportions. The 

 structure and habits of these crabs are both interesting and in- 

 structive, and a great deal has been written about them. Spider 

 crabs have a peculiar growth of a hairy appearance on their 

 backs. Their legs are long, and their locomotion on land ex- 

 tremely awkward. Most of their time they spend in moderately 

 deep water, and I have often taken them on the oyster beds of 

 Long Island Sound, and the fishermen have told me that they 

 play fearful havoc with the oysters, devouring great quantities 

 of them. Fiddler crabs, of which thousands upon thousands 

 lived in the short sea-grass that skirted the salt water, are very 

 interesting. Such places were literally riddled with their bur- 

 rows, and one had no trouble in capturing a pailful of these 

 fellows. They make capital bait for the fishing of Black fish. 

 Fiddlers are small crabs, with a pair of very unequal pincer 

 claws. This has given them their name, for the larger claw has 

 been likened to a fiddle, and the smaller claw to the bow. 

 Females of this species have very small pincers of equal size. 

 Several species of " fiddlers "are found upon our coast. Speak- 

 ing of the naming of crabs, I would state here that the name 

 " crab " itself is derived from Carabua, it being the Latin of the 



