294 A. EF. Verrill— The Bermuda Islands. 706 
in the simpler New England lobster pots. A skillful person may 
still obtain many lobsters by quietly rowing along the reefs and 
rocky shores and spearing those that show themselves in front of 
their holes or dens, which are under stones or in cavernous places in 
the reefs. They rarely weigh more than 20 pounds, but most that 
are taken for the market do not exceed 4 or 5 pounds. As they 
have no large claws, the weight is much less, in proportion to the 
size of the body, than in the American lobster. The flavor is equally 
good, but perhaps rather sweeter. 
The colors, especially in the young, are bright and striking, the 
back is greenish, specked with yellow; usually there is a row of two 
or three large, round, pale, yellowish spots along each side of the 
back of the abdomen ; the telson and caudal appendages are hand- 
somely banded near the borders with black and white; the legs are 
light blue, whitish below. 
The decrease in the numbers of the large and voracious fishes, like 
the groupers and rockfishes, would naturally have had a tendency to 
cause an increase in the number of lobsters, for those fishes and 
many others depended upon the lobsters for a part of their food. 
This, in a measure, has counteracted the effects of the lobster fisher- 
men. Owing to the absence of claws the Bermuda lobster is a very 
helpless and timid creature, depending for safety upon quickly 
retreating into its holes on the approach of an enemy. It has great 
fear of the Octopus, which often captures it. 
d.—The Land Crabs. (Gecarcinus lateralis Frem., etc.) 
FIGURE 97. 
The Land Crabs were mentioned by Capt. John Smith as very 
abundant and injurious, “ As thick in their Burrows as conies in a 
Warren and doe much hurt.” 
Figure 57.--Land Crab. (Gecarcinus lateralis.) 
Complaints were also made that persons in digging them for bait 
trespassed on the lands of others and did much damage by digging 
large holes, so that an early law was passed to prevent that evil. 
