Something about Crabs. 
upon the slightest provocation, and anything but straightforward 
in their actions. When a man begins “to crawfish” (the verb is 
sanctioned by usage, if not by lexicographers) he does not inspire 
respect. Yet who cannot recall some surly member of the commu- 
nity who is universally regarded as crusty and crabbed, but who, 
on more intimate acquaintance, reveals another character, quite at 
variance with the estimation in which he is popularly held? So 
it is with the crabs. Their crustiness is all external, and if one be 
willing to run the risk of an occasional nip, he will find that these 
much maligned creatures have many attractive aspects, and like 
the rest of nature they amply repay the time spent in their study. 
Tntellectually the Crustacea are supposed to rank pretty low in 
the scale, but it is an open question whether this inferiority be an 
actual one, or whether it results from deficient observation. We 
can take the ants into our studies and watch their every motion, 
but the crabs are not so easily domesticated; captivity does not 
agree well with most of them, and even with those which can be 
kept, the surroundings are so strange that we have an element 
entering the psychological equation the value of which it is not easy 
to ascertain. 
Of all the Crustacea with which I have had personal 
acquaintance, none are more interesting, either in captivity or 
on their native beach, than the fiddler crabs, those apparently 
misshapen forms which throng every suitable stretch of sand 
along our shores from Cape Cod to the Gulf of Mexico. A pic- 
ture is well in its way to illustrate the shape and general appearance 
of an animal, but no picture can present to us the animal in action, 
nor represent its varying moods and phases. The fiddler, with its 
quadrate body, its eyes seated on the tips of the slender erectile 
pedicels, those eight slender, sharp-pointed legs, and that enormous 
pincer, can readily be drawn, but the changing aspects of the body 
are beyond the artist’s power. 
When you draw near the beach where these crabs are abundant, 
no matter how cautiously you have approached, there is a hurried 
rush of myriads of these crabs, each scuttling away as fast as four 
pairs of legs will carry it, to a place of safety. At such a time the 
appropriateness of the common name is seen. In every direction 
are the fiddlers, each plying its small claw across the enormous 
fellow in the most amusing manner. No matter how often seen, 
