Crab

“ Speaking with due caution and in the gentlest manner possible, consistent with truth, I must say that this crab is, without exception, one of the dirtiest-looking animals I have ever met with in my zoological researches. At a by no means hasty glance, he appears to be miraculously built up of mud, hair, and grit on every part, except his claws, which are long and sharp as those of any bird of prey. ”

“ That crab steals his house.
He finds an empty shell, and goes into it to live.
It is odd to see him run, with the shell he stole on his back.
How does he live?
By fishing.
All crabs hunt and fish.
I have told you how they hunt on the sand for bugs and flies.
Did I not tell you how they hunt for grubs and worms under ground?
How do they fish?
Mr. Crab gets into a good place to fish.
He pops out his eyes to see all about him.
Then when things that he likes to eat float by, he strikes out with his big hand.
He catches what he wants nearly every time.
Crabs are very greedy. ”

“ Once upon a time there was a lake in the mountains, and in that lake lived a huge Crab. I daresay you have often seen crabs boiled, and put on a dish for you to eat; and perhaps at the seaside you have watched them sidling away at the bottom of a pool. Sometimes a boy or girl bathing in the sea gets a nip from a crab, and then there is squeaking and squealing. But our Crab was much larger than these; he was the largest Crab ever heard of; he was bigger than a dining-room table, and his claws were [2] as big as an armchair. Fancy what it must be to have a nip from such claws as those! ”

“ They will interest us while living in the aquarium, and when dead we can put them into pickle, and break them up at our leisure.
The broad shell of the Crab—the crab-cart of children—corresponds to the carapace of the Lobster, the Prawn, and the Shrimp, and bears the same number of appendages—fourteen pairs. To make out the pleon or swimming part, it is only necessary to lay the crab on its back, and, with a needle, or small knife, turn back the flap—or ‘apron,’ as fishermen call it—which lies in a groove on the under surface. ”

“ Then if you look at the first joint of the greater feelers through the microscope, you will see two other tiny glands. These are the crab’s noses, by which it can smell odours in the water just as we can smell odours in the air. It always seems to find its food by scent, and if one of those basket-like traps which we call crab-pots is baited with a few pieces of decaying fish and lowered into the sea, crabs will smell the bait from quite a long distance away, and come hurrying up to obtain a share in the banquet. ”

“ As the crab is taken from the water, its mud-colored shell appears a dark ultramarine blue, the claws of a lighter shade, the under part shading to white tinged with pink; its entire surface seems metallic in the intensity of its coloring as it leaves the water. [95] From a slow, lazy animal of peaceful habits, the crab has become a veritable monster, savage and fiercely aggressive, and woe to the unfortunate within reach of his claws. ”

“ Fish and birds eat them.
Men eat some kinds of crabs. Crabs eat each other.
With so many enemies, crabs would soon be all gone, if they did not lay so many eggs. Mrs. Crab, each year, lays more eggs than you could count.
Crabs do not always have hard shells.
When they first come from the egg they have long tails, four legs, and no claws. The crab’s body then has a thin cover. He can swim well.
A little pink crab, named Pea Crab, goes to live in the shell of the oyster. The oyster does not seem to mind it. ”

“ If you go down among the rocks when the tide is out, and hunt about in the pools, you may often find the shell of a whelk in which a small crab is living, with one of his great claws carefully guarding the entrance. ”

“ If you want to see a curious sight get a hermit crab some day and pick up half a dozen empty shells of the size to fit him. Lay the shells on the sand in a circle a few inches across, extract the crab without hurting him from his house, and set him down naked among the empty shells. To get him out, by the way, is not so easy as it sounds, but you can do it by taking hold of his claws and maintaining a steady, gentle pull; in time the muscles of his tail will tire and his grip relax. ”

“ Sometimes one crab cuts off the hand or leg of the other crab.
Or he bites the shell on his back.
If only a leg is cut off, the crab may keep on fighting.
But if his hand, or eye, or back shell is hurt, he must give up.
He runs home to hide, until a new eye, or hand, or leg can grow.
If your hand is cut off, will it grow again?
When a crab is afraid, he runs home.
But he is very brave, and does not much fear other crabs.
He fears birds most; for birds eat small crabs; and the crab cannot fight a big bird.
Swing a rag over a crab’s head.
Up fly his eye-pegs! ”

“ This very day I shall feed your flesh to the fishes." The Crab, seeing plainly that he could not escape, faced around and seized the Frog, and tore him to pieces with his powerful claws, saying, "He who finds that he cannot avoid a quarrel owes it to himself to put up a bold fight." ”

“ The sun which retraces its steps is a crab; the moon which draws back, or draws out, is also a crab, and, in this [Pg 357] respect, seems to hold the same place as the sea-urchin with the hundred oars, or of the dolphin with the scythe-shaped fin, which draws the chariot of the solar hero, or the solar hero himself. In the fable of Kriloff, the crab draws the chariot with the pike and the heron (the latter taking the place here of the crane, which we have seen above in connection with the crab, and which is also called in Sanskṛit by the same name as the crab, that is, karkaṭas) . ”

“ A remarkable feature in the life-history of the crab is the changing of its shell, to permit its growth, and the reproduction, as noticed above, of injured claws. Annually, usually during the winter, the crab retires to a cavity in the rocks or beneath a great stone, and conceals itself until the new shell, which at first is very soft, becomes hardened. ”

“ Teams of horses and oxen are born under the Twins, and well-hung wenchers and those who bedung both sides of the wall. I was born under the Crab and therefore stand on many legs and own much property on land and sea, for the crab is as much at home on one as he is in the other. ”

“ Small crabs scramble along, or swim across the pools, sand-skippers dart through the water, feeding on the delicate green seaweed, which in its turn is covered with minute shells not visible to the naked eye, and yet each containing a living being. ”

“ A creature that depends upon its own exertions to capture the active prey on which it feeds, must necessarily be furnished with powerful eyes, which are capable of extending the faculty of vision over a very large field. These eyes are seen on the front margin of the crab, placed on footstalks, and having a peculiar nacreous lustre on their grey-brown surfaces. ”

“ This creature, when the moon is full opens itself wide, and when the crab looks in he throws in a piece of rock or seaweed and the oyster cannot close again, whereby it serves for food to that crab. ”

“ We hastened onward by the water's edge, letting our horses' feet just touch the fringe of the sparkling waves, startling hundreds of small white and sand-colored crabs. Their black eyes are fixed on the points of movable pinnacles, which are thrust out from the round eye-sockets, and stand upright. ”

“ "What a pity it wouldn't stay!" sighed the Lory, and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to its daughter, "Ah, my dear! let this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!" "Hold your tongue, Ma!" said the young Crab, a little snappishly. "You're enough to try the patience of an oyster!" ”

“ At one time it may be the home of myriads of infant crabs, not an eighth of an inch long, at another of baby sea-urchins only visible to the naked eye as minute spots in the water, at another of young jelly-fish growing on their tiny stalks, and splitting off one by one as transparent bells to float away with the rising tide. ”

“ Odd red and white crabs emerged from their hiding places, a tiny fish that glittered with the dazzling hues of a fire opal flapped from under a bit of adhering seaweed, funny slug-like molluscs of intense blue and gold crawled about the mass, queer little snails were everywhere and when the boys disturbed the coral or handled it they heard odd snapping noises like lilliputian firecrackers. ”

“ When I don't see any little crabs on the shore, or sticking up out of the water, I usually see them blowing bubbles from under the water; the little bubbles go PUFF, PUFF, PUFF, and then they go POP, POP, POP, and they show me where the little juicy crabs are, so I can put my paw in and catch them. ”

“ Both these crabs that we have been considering exhibit their intelligence and live their lives in the sea, and it is with salt water and the rocky pools of the sea-shore that crabs, generally, are inseparably associated in our minds. ”

“ On the decayed trunks we caught sight of crabs of every variety of tint and size, watching for their prey, while butterflies and dragonflies of gorgeous hues flitted amid the more open spots wherever the sunlight found its way, some of the latter with crimson bodies and black heads and burnished wings, others with green and blue bodies. ”

“ Bisque of Crabs.—Boil twelve hard-shell crabs for thirty minutes, and drain; when cold break them apart, pick out the meat carefully, scrape off all fat adhering to the upper shell,14 and save these for deviled crabs (an excellent recipe for deviled crabs may be found in "Salads and Sauces.") ”

“ The dealer of live red crabs attracts a crowd, and the crabs crawl up the sides of his cage as he pours water down on their backs. Though why any one should buy the crabs, I don’t know, for they are less than 2 inches from toe to toe. ”

“ It is fond of crabs, and when in quest of them, will stand by the side of a swamp, and hang its tail over into the water; the crabs, mistaking it for food, are sure to lay hold of it; and as soon as the beast feels them pinch, he pulls them out with a sudden jerk. ”

“ A scarcely less minute account follows of the ‘Malacostraca’ or crustaceans, the lobsters and the crabs, the shrimps and the prawns, and others of their kind, a chapter to which Cuvier devoted a celebrated essay. There be many kinds of crabs—the common kind, the big ‘granny’ crabs, the little horsemen-crabs, that scamper over the sand and which are for the most part empty, that is to say, whose respiratory cavities are exceptionally large ”

“ To extract the crabs from their shells, which are of all shapes and kinds, is a very simple matter—the hard casing is broken by placing them upon a large stone and striking them a sharp blow with one of lesser size. ”

“ "Now then, Mr. Crab," said the zebra, "here are the peo [160] ple I told you about; and they know more than you do, who live in a pool, and more than I do, who live in a forest. For they have been travelers all over the world, and know every part of it."
"There's more of the world than Oz," declared the crab, in a stubborn voice.
"That is true," said Dorothy; "but I used to live in Kansas, in the United States, and I've been to California and to Australia—and so has Uncle Henry."
"For my part," added the Shaggy Man, "I've been to Mexico and Boston and many other foreign countries."
"And I," ”

“ Our least deed, like the young of the land crab, wends its way to the sea of cause and effect as soon as born, and makes a drop there to eternity. ”

“ The front pair of legs form nipping claws, which are renewed when injured or lost. The eyes are compound and movable. The majority of crabs live in the sea, but there are some fresh-water species, and others which live on land, but go to the sea to spawn. ”

“ As one observes the nature and movements of these interesting little crabs one cannot fail to see how beautifully their form and structure are adapted to their habits. They are peculiarly constructed for abode in narrow chinks and crannies, and for feeding on the small forms of life that inhabit such sheltered places. ”

“ There, at a depth to which divers would find it difficult to descend, are caverns, haunts, and dusky mazes, where monstrous creatures multiply and destroy each other. Huge crabs devour fish and are devoured in their turn. Hideous shapes of living things, not created to be seen by human eyes, wander in this twilight. Vague forms of antennæ, tentacles, fins, open jaws, scales, and claws, float about there, quivering, growing larger, or decomposing and perishing in the gloom, while horrible swarms of swimming things prowl about seeking their prey.
To gaze into the depths of the sea is, in the imagination, like beholding the vast unknown, and from its most terrible point of view. ”

“ Fish.—Bream, brill, carp, cod, crab, crayfish, eels, flounders, haddocks, halibut, herrings, ling, lobsters, mullet, mussels, oysters, pike, prawns, salmon, scallops, shrimps, skate, smelts, soles, sprats, turbot, whitebait, whiting. ”

“ They lay claim to be the first inventors of those recondite beverages, cock-tail, stone-fence, and sherry-cobbler, and to have discovered the gastronomical merits of terrapins, soft crabs, and canvas-back ducks. ”

“ There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going,
When they seem going they come: Diplomates, women, and crabs. ”

“ Not only is the eye pleased with the ever-varying formations of the coral bowers, but almost dazzled with the glittering fish—blue, emerald, green, scarlet, orange, banded, spotted, and striped—that dart hither and thither among the rich-toned sea-weed and the variegated anemones which spread their tentacles upwards as if inviting the gazer to come down. ”

“ After I had learned a great many interesting things about the life and habits of the children of the sea—how in the midst of dashing waves the little polyps build the beautiful coral isles of the Pacific, and the foraminifera have made the chalk-hills of many a land—my teacher read me "The Chambered Nautilus," and showed me that the shell-building process of the mollusks is symbolical of the development of the mind. ”