IV. 



OUE CARCIN0L06ICAL FRIENDS. 



Amono our first acquaintances of the sea-shore 

 are sure to be a number of those merry sprites 

 which have not yet mastered the lesson of how to 

 walk straight — or rather, we should sa}", walk 

 straight ahead, for if many of the crabs have 

 failed to acquire the habit of following in the 

 direction towards which the head points, they have 

 well acquired the art of diverging straight from it 

 at a right angle. It is certainly one of the most in- 

 teresting sights of the shore to observe these appar- 

 ently one-sided creatures hurrying off in their lat- 

 eral progression, making probably for their burrows 

 in the sand or mud ; pass them, and note how rap- 

 idly some of them reverse their motion, without 

 even so much as stopping to glance at their pur- 

 suer. The machinery appears to have given out at 

 one end, when they immediately reverse, and travel 

 back over their old course. Among the more pro- 

 nounced offenders against the commonly accepted 

 law of proper walking are the little ' fiddlers,' or 

 ' calling crabs' as they are sometimes termed. 

 Their burrows, indicated by holes about as large 

 as would be made by a thrust from an umbrella- 

 point, are scattered all over the salt marshes and 

 mud-flats at about high-water mark, and from 

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