




SOMETHING ABOUT CRABS. 263 
protects her from all enemies, whether of fishes, or of their 
own kind. She is now getting ready to shed, and is called 
a shedder. Soon the back begins to burst nigh to the tail. 
She is then called a buster. The he one is then very anxious 
to find a good place for her, either by digging a hole in the 
sand or mud, or else looking up a good cover under some 
sea-weed. Here he brings her, all the time hovering nigh, 
and doing battle for her if anything comes along. She now 
—and it only takes a few minutes—withdraws from the 
old shell. And she comes out perfect, every part, even to 
the inside of the hairs, eyes and long feelers, almost like the 
whiskers of a cat. At the first tide she is fat, and the shell 
is soft, just like a thin skin. She is then called a soft shell, 
and it's the first-tiders that bring the high price. At the 
second tide she is perfectly watery and transparent, and is 
called a buckler; but she is not worth much then. At the 
third tide she is again a hard shell, just as she always was, 
only bigger." 
"Have you seen all this with your own eyes?" we asked. 
"Lor, sir, yes, hundreds and hundreds of times." 
For the sake of contrast with these observations of an 
illiterate man, let us give the gist of an entertaining passage 
from Gosse : 5 
"Peering into a hole I saw a fine large crab. Though he 
made vigorous efforts to hold fast to the angles of his cave, 
I pulled him out, and carried him home. I noticed that 
there came out with him the claw of a crab of a similar size, 
but quite soft, which I supposed might have been carried . 
in there by my gentleman to eat, or accidentally washed in. 
After I had got him out—it was a male—I looked in and 
Saw another at the bottom of the hole. Arrived at home I 
discovered that I had left my pocket-knife at the mouth of 
the crab-hole. I returned, the crab had not moved. 1 drew 
ìt out, as I had done the others. But lo! it was a soft crab, 
the shell being of the consistence of wet parchment. It was 
4 female, too, without any sign of spawn, and had lost one 

