A TALK ABOUT CRABS 
117 
down. The creature is unable to swim, but 
crawls about the sand and mud in search of 
its food, which consists of marine worms and 
molluscs. For the greater part of the year 
king-crabs dwell in deep water, but during 
the breeding season they come into the shallows, 
and at high tide the females deposit their eggs 
in shallow depressions they scrape in the soil. 
The ova are then quickly covered up by the 
action of the ebbing tide, and the buried eggs 
get warmed by the sun’s rays, so that in due 
course the young crabs hatch out, these being 
diminutive creatures decorated with a fringe 
of bristles around their rotund and tailless 
bodies. The absence of a caudal appendage 
is liable to cause the infants some inconvenience 
for should they turn topsy-turvy they have 
not the same means of righting themselves 
as is possessed by their parents. Nevertheless 
they are able to overcome the difficulty by 
forcing themselves upwards in the water by 
means of their gill plates, and as they descend 
once again they endeavour to regain their 
equilibrium. 
Before concluding our remarks we would 
draw attention to an interesting genus called 
pea-crabs, so named on account of their 
diminutive size. Their habits are very peculiar, 
inasmuch as they make their homes within 
