19 -NOTES ON THE KING-CRAB FISHERY OF DELAWARE BAY. 
BY HUGH M. SMITH. 
(With Plates cxxi-cxxiii.) 
INTEODUCTOEY. 
The fishery for king-crabs, while not primarily intended to provide a food product, 
nevertheless indirectly contributes to that result by furnishing a simple yet efficient 
fertilizer for use on land the natural vitality of which is low or has been exhausted. 
The king-crab, therefore, notwithstanding it has no commercial value for edible 
purposes,* is an important economic factor both to fishermen and farmers, and its 
capture becomes an industry of no little consequence to the community, in addition to 
the inherent interest which it possesses for those whose attention is directed toward 
the commercial fisheries. 
While farmers and others in many of the States on the Atlantic seaboard, from 
Massachusetts to Florida, utilize small numbers of the crabs for fertilizer, and occa- 
sionally as food for poultry and swine, it is only in Delaware Bay that the capture of 
the animal can be said to constitute a well-defined industry, and it is only there, so 
far as known, that special forms of apparatus have been devised and employed for 
taking the crabs. 
OBSEEVATIONS ON HABITS, EEPEODUCTION, ETC. 
The king-crabs are chiefly found on soft sandy or muddy bottoms, where, more or 
less imbedded, they spend the greater part of their existence. In the colder months 
they probably retire to the deeper portions of the bay, but what condition of life they 
then assume is not known. It is chiefly, and almost exclusively, during the breeding 
season that they approach the shore. The deposition and impregnation of the eggs 
being accomplished, they rapidly withdraw to deeper water and do not usually visit 
the beaches again in any numbers till the following year. 
The breeding season may be said to cover two months, beginning about May 1 
and extending to July 1. During this period the crabs seek the sandy shores in 
pairs, the male riding on the back of the female ; sometimes, however, a female will 
*Capt. Charles H. Townsend, of New Haven, states that he has found the king-crah very 
palatable when steamed, and thinks it equal or superior to any of the common edible crabs. 
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