106 ECONOMICAL GEOLOGY. 



turalists) which frequent it. At the season for depositing 

 their eggs, which is in the latter part of May and in June, 

 they come on shore in almost incredible numbers. The 

 whole strand for many miles is covered with them — some- 

 times two or three deep. Mr. Thos. P. Hughes, of Town 

 Bank, says that on his shore of one hundred rods, he could 

 get 100,000 in a week ; 750,000 were taken on about a half 

 mile of the strand, a year since ; and this year, 1,200,000, 

 were taken on about a mile. They deposit their eggs, and 

 then leave the shore entirely, till the same season next 

 year. But little, if any thing, is known of their habits 

 or localities during the interval. The number of eggs is 

 very great. They are so thick along the shore, that they 

 can be shovelled up and collected by the wagon load. 

 Great numbers are thus gathered and carried away to feed 

 chickens. When they hatch, the sand is fairly alive with 

 the little creatures. A year or two since, a vessel took in 

 a load of sand on the shore, and in two or three days, so 

 many of these young king crabs appeared in it, that they 

 were obliged to throw the whole overboard. 



Hogs eat the crabs with great avidity; and it is the 

 common practice along all our shores, to gather them for 

 that purpose, in the proper season. It is common also to 

 gather them into pens, and allow them to putrefy, and 

 form a kind of compound, to be used as manure. Other 

 persons have composted them for the same purpose. For 

 the raising of wheat, they have been very successfully 

 used. On land which would not grow wheat at all up to 

 that time, crops of twenty, twenty-five, and even thirty 

 bushels to the acre, have been raised by the use of these 



