Crustacea. 1265 



Anecdote of a Crab. — When staying some years ago for a few months on the sea- 

 coast of Sussex, I learnt from the fishermen there, rather a curious fact about the loco- 

 motive powers of the crab. Most of the Crustacea, we know, when found at low-water, 

 can run, considering their size, at a very respectable pace ; but whether they can go as 

 fast under water, and how long they could keep in motion, are points not very easily de- 

 termined. The fact I allude to, however, throws some light on the subject. The fish- 

 ermen at Selsea, the place where I was staying, catch the crabs, &c. in wicker pots or 

 baskets, something like a common kind of live mouse-trap. These they let down with 

 a cord, attached to which are a given number of corks, which of course float on 

 the surface of the sea, and serve to point out the position of the pot. After the fish- 

 ermen have taken up all the pots, taken the crabs out of them, baited them, and sunk 

 them again, they sail away homewards, and as they are going, one man is generally 

 employed in binding up the claws of the lobsters with some willow-twigs to prevent 

 their biting or injuring each other. But the crabs, not being so valuable, are pre- 

 vented from quarrelling by making a small separation with a knife at the claw-joint, 

 and sticking in, cruelly enough, a peg or wedge of wood, — a process which effectually 

 puts a stop to anything like a pugnacious use of the limb. It often happens, however, 

 that of the crabs which are caught, some are what the fishermen call out of season, 

 and have their shells leathery and tough, in consequence, I presume, of the old shell 

 having been recently cast off, and the new one not having, as yet, reached the usual 

 healthy standard of crustacean induration. Such fish not being either eatable or sale- 

 able articles, are always thrown away, and pitched back again into the sea. It hap- 

 pened on one occasion that a female crab of this unprofitable kind was caught, but in- 

 stead of being thrown overboard at once, or soon after being caught, was brought 

 almost close to shore and then allowed to escape. The next time that the men went to 

 take up their pots, most probably at the next day's low tide, or about twenty-three 

 hours after she was first caught, they caught their old friend again. How they con- 

 trived to recognize her I do not remember now, but I recollect that at the time they 

 managed to satisfy me that they could not be mistaken in supposing they had cap- 

 tured the same crab twice. The distance from shore to the fishing ground was ten or 

 eleven miles ; the intervening sea at some places a considerable depth, and at others 

 very shallow, so that the traveller had to go up and down hill a good deal in her soli- 

 tary journey. Moreover, the current, especially where the water was shallow, ran re- 

 markably strong, so as to increase the length of the journey, in my opinion, by full 

 half of what it would otherwise have been. This will make it about fifteen miles or so. 

 The time it took her, I calculate in this way : since the tide gains one hour nearly in every 

 day, there would be, as I said before, twenty-three hours between the two captures. 

 Now three of these hours, we may safely conclude, were employed in taking up the 

 pots, &c, and in the homeward voyage. This of course will just leave twenty hours 

 for the crab's journey, supposing her, that is, to have regained her old station and gone 

 into the old trap, almost immediately before the fishermen came and hauled up the 

 pots again ; she went therefore, at the slowest, fifteen miles in twenty hours, or three- 

 quarters of a mile per hour. I do not know whether this is really an extraordinary 

 pace, but for an animal of that size, walking sideways, and under water, where the re- 

 sistance is so much greater than in the air, it appears to me more than we might have 

 expected. It ought, also, I think, to be recollected that the crab was in an unhealthy 

 state, and, therefore, most probably not so strong on its legs as it otherwise would have 

 been, and that it had been, when it started, for some hours out of its natural element. 

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