A GLORIOUS OLD CRAB. 
321 
warded miv exertions, while the shore-party returned 
shortly after noon, full of glowing accounts of black bear 
and gigantic salmon, but without either the one or the 
other: they had neither killed or caught any thing, and 
were in high glee at the prospect of fried flounders and 
lobster-salad to be made from the enormous crab, whose 
legs had to be broken oft to get him into our largest pot. 
This fellow, I think, deserves more than a passing 
comment; for I have subsequently searched in vain for 
his counterpart through various authorities, and am 
forced to the conclusion that they are a half-crab, half- 
lobster freak of nature, larger even than the latter, and 
existing only on those or similar unfrequented shores. 
I say “they,” because the shore-party reported the 
beach as being crowded with similar shells, the meat 
having been most probably scratched out by the bears, 
which abound along that coast in great numbers. Some 
of the shells seen were from seven to nine inches in 
diameter, almost round, and quite thick and strong. It 
was in the claws that the animal resembled the lobster, 
everything else being more like the crab. When the 
fellow that we had caught alongside was spread out on 
the deck upon his back, his legs measured three feet two 
inches from tip to tip; and when we turned him over he 
raised himself on those tips several inches above the deck, 
as if to command a better view of things in general. Ilis 
smallest legs were as largo as one’s little finger; and it 
Avas in one of these that the hook had accidentally caught, 
the shell being strong enough to lift him over the ship’s 
side. laking the taste of the bears for good authority, 
we immediately boiled and transferred him into a crab- 
