At the Water's Edge 



my approach ; they even tumbled over each 

 other in their anxiety to get away. So dense 

 were they that the very ground seemed to be 

 slipping off, as they fled away, and their innu- 

 merable bodies rustled curiously through the salt 

 grass. While the males are armed with a formid- 

 able apparatus that looks like a pair of slender 

 ivory nippers about one inch long or more, for 

 seizing their prey, the females are provided with 

 only a very diminutive weapon of this sort; 

 depending, probably, upon their powers of per- 

 suasion for holding their victims; a peculiarity 

 not confined to crustaceans. My attention 

 was called to this swarm of crabs by seeing the 

 ground riddled with holes, as if punctured by a 

 cane, and about three inches deep; and, as I 

 followed them up, the crabs dropped into these 

 holes like pool-balls into a "pocket." After 

 standing still a minute, I could see them pop- 

 ping their heads out all around me, and, if I 

 moved at all, drop back again. At Cape May 

 I afterward found acres of them, sunning them- 

 selves on the muddy flats, and along the inlets. 

 They are called " fiddler crabs " from the awk- 

 ward way in which they hold their prehensile 

 apparatus high in the air as they run along ; 

 which, with their motion sideways, is about as 

 i8i 



