Something about Crabs. 891 
crabs in with the sand and the vivarium is stocked. All that is 
necessary to keep it in running condition is to occasionally moisten 
the sand, and to supply new food before the old is exhausted, 
Kept in this way fiddlers will readily live in confinement through 
the warmer months, and possibly through the winter as well, 
though I never tried to keep them so long. I had only male 
fiddlers, and these I kept in the ordinary glass fruit jars which were 
half filled with sand. This furnished them endless employment, 
for they were constantly digging new burrows and filling up those 
dug but a few hours before. Why this dissatisfaction I am not 
able to say; possibly it was a case of “Ccelebs in search of a 
wife.” 
A fight between fiddlers is an amusing affair. When one sees 
his enemy approaching he immediately puts all his forces on a war- 
footing. The long-stalked eyes are erected so as to watch every 
motion of his antagonist; the big pincer furnishes not a bad imita- 
tion of the shield with which the soldiers of ancient times protected 
themselves, while the tension of every nerve is shown in the dainty 
way in which the eight walking legs trip over the sand, holding the 
body as high as possible in the air. At last the two meet. 
There is a clash of arms, each striving to grasp his antagonist and 
at the same time to protect himself, but might here takes the 
place of right, and the victor is he who loses the least number 
of members. There is no surgeon to bind up the wounds, but 
the amputation of a limb is not such a serious matter here as 
with human warriors. The yellowish blood which flows quickly 
coagulates and forms a covering for the wound, and then nature 
immediately sets about replacing the missing member. The way 
this is accomplished is so interesting and so different from anything 
occurring in the lords of creation that it deserves a moment’s atten- 
tion, 
The crabs are covered with a hard and unyielding armor 
which does not admit of growth. So at intervals they shed their 
shell, and then form a new and larger one, which in turn will be 
cast to accommodate still further increase of size. In the fiddler 
crab the first sign one notices of the approaching molt is a splitting 
of the integument just where the slender tail (which is kept 
folded beneath the body) joins to the larger anterior portion. 
