THE HORSESHOE CRAB 



from three to six inches long, which is occa- 

 sionally cast up after a storm on the beach. 

 Its broad back is so thickly covered with 

 bristles that it appears to be clad in fur and 

 remotelj^ suggests a mouse. 



The green crab, called by the scientific 

 crazy — moenas — and by the French enrage^ 

 on account of its lively behavior and reckless 

 audacity when brought to bay, is fonder of 

 the milder water south of Cape Cod, where 

 the gulf stream meanders, than it is of the 

 shores washed by the arctic current. In the 

 summer of 1901, however, it appeared in 

 scanty munbers in the waters of Fox Creek, a 

 tributary of the Ipswich River. The next year 

 it had spread to the Castle Neck and Essex 

 Rivers and was reported as far north as Kit- 

 tery in southern Maine, while in the summer 

 of 1903 it was abundant everywhere in the 

 creeks, marshes and beaches. The winters, 

 for some time mild, took on an arctic severity 

 in 1903-4, and I was unable to find any green 

 crabs the following summer. Milder winters 

 have followed, and by 1910 this crab was fairly 

 abundant again. Although green in color 

 with yellow markings when alive, it becomes 

 reddish when dead and east up on the shores . 



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