TURNSTONE. 
325 
this bird is well known by the name of the Horse-foot Snipe, 
from its living’, daring the months of May and June, almost 
wholly on the eggs, or spawn, of the great king crab, called 
here by the common people the horse-foot. This animal is 
the Monoculus polyphemus of entomologists. Its usual size is 
from twelve to fifteen inches in breadth, by two feet in length ; 
though sometimes it is found much larger. The head, or fore- 
part, is semicircular, and convex above, covered with a thin, 
elastic, shelly case. The lower side is concave, where it is 
furnished with feet and claws resembling those of a crab. The 
posterior extremity consists of a long, hard, pointed, dagger- 
like tail, by means of which, when overset by the waves, the 
animal turns itself on its belly again. The male may be dis- 
tinguished from the female by his two large claws having only 
a single hook each, instead of the forceps of the female. In 
the bay of Delaware, below Egg Island, and in what is usually 
called Maurice River Cove, these creatures seem to have 
formed one of their principal settlements. The bottom of this 
cove is generally a soft mud, extremely well suited to their 
accommodation. Here they are resident, burying themselves 
in the mud during the winter ; but, early in the month of 
May, they approach the shore in multitudes, to obey the great 
law of nature, in depositing their eggs within the influence of 
the sun, and are then very troublesome to the fishermen, who 
can scarcely draw a seine for them, they are so numerous. 
Being of slow motion, and easily overset by the surf, their 
dead j bodies cover the shore in heaps, and in such numbers, 
that for ten miles one might walk on them without touching 
the ground. 
The hogs from the neighbouring country are regularly 
driven down, every spring, to feed on them, which they do 
with great avidity ; though by this kind of food their flesh 
acquires a strong disagreeable fishy taste. Even the small 
turtles, or terrapins, so eagerly sought after by our epicures, 
contract so rank a taste by feeding on the spawn of the king 
crab, as to be at such times altogether unpalatable. This 
