July, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
301 
finally he stopped baiting and allowed 
his tackle to lie idle on the bottom. 
After awhile he became aware that 
there was something working about his 
line and was much surprised to see one 
of his pink-spotted tormentors come 
claw after claw up his line, then down 
his rod to quite near his hand, where 
it reared up on its hind legs and looked 
hungrily into his bait box. 
While this incident has never been 
verified by the writer, still it illustrates 
the character of the beast, and serves 
as an illuminator in general. It needs 
no further description, as every angler 
has met up with it many times and has 
contributed much expensive bait to its 
bill of fare. 
A NOTHER crab which is very an- 
noying at times is the g'iant 
spider. This is a hideous crea- 
ture, usually met with in muddy chan- 
nels of rivers and bays and sometimes, 
but not generally, around fishing piers. 
It is dark — nearly black — in color, and 
has a great spread of legs, entirely out 
of proportion to its body, on the ends 
of which are its claws or nippers. As 
they are cream colored they have the 
appearance of being 'ivory - tipped. 
Their legs, when extended, frequently 
measure fifteen or more inches, and are 
many jointed and armed with the most 
vicious of nippers which can readily 
sever a gut leader or line. 
Fortunately this is not a species that 
is an ever-present evil. It has the pe- 
culiarity of disappearing from our 
waters at periods, and some seasons 
pass by without an individual being met 
with at pbints where they are usually 
numerous. Their absence, however, 
never causes regret to the angler as 
they are an unqualified nuisance when 
present. 
Their hideous aspect when drawn to 
the side of the boat has, so it is told, 
caused many fishermen to eschew the 
use of “liquid baits” and to settle down 
into staunch, staid citizenship. 
The horse-foot or king-crab is an- 
other creature of most curious mien, 
but fortuantely is not so troublesome as 
the king spider, being not nearly so 
abundant and not so prone to search 
out the bait. They are at times, how- 
ever, all too abundant at such places as 
Barnegat and Egg Harbor Inlets, as 
well as at many other points along the 
southern New Jersey coast. 
They are most peculiar creatures, 
having somewhat the shape of a horse’s 
foot, and travel broad-end foremost, 
and are completely housed within a 
hard shell. When seen moving along at 
a distance they resemble nothing so 
much as an inverted scoop shovel drag- 
ging a long spiked tail behind. 
When turned on their backs they are 
quite helpless and the labyrinth of 
waving short legs displayed is astound- 
ing. They are all set going at once and 
each one in a different direction, mak- 
ing it a physical impossibility to count 
them. It is said that no one has been 
able to count more than a hundred legs, 
as they wriggle about so much it be- 
comes confusing to proceed with any 
degree of accuracy. 
The common skate 
They are extremely troublesome to 
the fisherman when they do hover over 
his bait, inasmuch as they invariably 
get line and leader all tangled up with 
thdir legs, and they seem to take a 
fiendish delight in tying a loop or knot 
for each leg involved. When the tackle 
becomes fouled by one and the reeling- 
in process begins, they instinctively 
bury the broad expanse of shell in the 
sand and the subsequent landing be- 
comes a matter of sheer strength of 
tackle and patience of fisherman. 
They are not, however, so entirely 
worthless as the two foregoing species, 
for they are regarded as quite a deli- 
cacy by barn-yard fowl. How any self- 
respecting chicken could bring itself to 
the point of indulging in such a feast 
as this creature might present is quite 
beyond the writer’s ken. Why put a 
confiding chicken to the task of work- 
ing through a ton of bones and shell to 
secure an ounce of questionable food? 
Of the familiar edible blue Crab, not 
much may be said that is detrimental to 
its character. It rarely becomes much 
of a nuisance to the angler. True, 
there are times when using live min- 
nows for certain kinds of bottom-feed- 
ing fish, that this crab will cut the bait 
up badly, but it has the rare quality of 
holding to the desired morsel until 
brought to the surface, and can fre- 
quently be boated if handled carefully. 
Besides, it makes good eating, and if 
the fisherman desires he may carry it 
home and make direct reprisal for the 
bait it may have destroyed. Aga.n, it 
is a bold warrior and seems anxious at 
all times when in captivity to take a 
fall out of its captor, and will without 
hesitancy — if opportunity offers — take 
a most punishing strangle hold on its 
adversary, no matter how great its size 
may be, and usually wins first blood and 
puts its adversary to rout. So, while 
in a way the blue crab may be classed 
as dross, albeit he is so good a battler 
that he commands respect, and besides 
he never meddles with the affairs of the 
surf fisherman, as it is only in rivers 
and bays that he protrudes h.s presence. 
The above embraces all there are of 
the crab family which may be expected 
to give annoyance in either surf or bay 
fishing along the middle Atlantic coast, 
but, it may be said in passing, they will 
be found sufficient. 
| 
P ASSING on to quite another form 
of life we come to the family of 
rays or skates. These are distinc- 
tive in species and not, as many people 
think, just big and little members of 
one family. 
The first for review is the little skate, 
met with in all channels of rivers and 
bays as well as in the open surf. It 
appears to be present nearly the entire 
year, at least on the middle Atlantic 
seaboard. It is the first to greet the 
fisherman in his early endeavors, and 
is very reliable in finding his bait. It 
is rarely taken on the flats, but in the 
deep waters of the sloughs along the 
beach it is prevalent and very annoy- 
ing, as it rarely takes the bait with suf- 
ficent vim to give the man at the rod 
any notice of its presence, and he only 
learns that his bait has been disturbed 
when he starts reeling in his line; then 
the perceptible drag gives him due no- 
tice of what his tackle has connected 
with. It rarely exceeds a foot in width 
and has many spines protruding from 
its upper surface. 
When drawn on the beach it has the 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 328 ) 
An inflated blow-fish — one of the pests of the sea 
