CRABS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 871, 15 January 1930, Page 6

CRABS

AN INTERESTING STUDY How many of you in your rambles along the seashore have made a study of crabs and watched them basking in the sunshine or scraping off the green growth on the rocks and putting it into their mouths with their two front forklike claws? These claws are broader and shorter than the other eight which the crab possesses and are never used for walking, but they have nippers at the end with which they catch and pinch their food. They also use these as weapons of defence, if alarmed or annoyed. When looking at these common seashore crabs of all sizes you would imagine that the baby crab looks exactly like the old one, except that it is smaller in size, but this is not so. When it is first hatched from the egg which the mother crab lays it looks quite different, and at one time people used to think it was a. different kind of animal altogether. It does not start off in life with its full number of legs and claws; these only grow out gradually and it has to "moult” (as it is called when crabs lose their shells and grow new and bigger ones) more than once before it looks exactly like the big, full-grown crabs. Moulting is a very dangerous and awkward process for the crab, because it has to slip right out of its old shell, which has become too small for it, and then go into hiding until it has grown a new one. It is in danger of its life while it is growing the new shell, for if it were found in that state by another crab it would be killed at once. Crabs are great fighters and often break each other’s claws off while fighting, but this does not worry them much, for they easily grow them again, and after they have moulted once or twice they will have all their limbs quite sound again. Of course, the crabs which are to be seen about the rocks are of the common shore crab variety, but there are many other kinds of crabs in the world. There is the large thornback crab which is useful in eating up the refuse round the coast; then there is the spider crab, which has legs so thin and slight that it looks like a seaspider. There is also the swimming crab, which has two legs shaped like a pair of oars. There is the devil crab, a wickedlooking little animal covered with coarse brown hair. Another very interesting little crab is the pea crab. This little crab goes into hiding in a living mollusc and there lives in the anenome, sharing the food which, by

opening and shutting its shell, the mollusc takes in. Some land crabs have a different way of breathing to these sea crabs and they could actually drown in water. Some crabs live in fresh water, while others can climb mountains. In the West Indies they find a wonderful crab; it makes its home two or three miles from the sea. When the females wish to lay their eggs they do not lay them and carry them about with them as the common crabs do, but they make their way to the sea and bury them in the sand. When the time comes the crabs all gather together into a large company and the males lead the way. Off they go, regardless of anything which may come in their way. Houses and walls and cliffs cannot stop them, they never turn aside, but go right on, even if hundreds are killed in the climb. When they at last arrive at the seashore and after the females have laid their eggs, the old crabs once more make their way inland. There is another kind of crab known as the calling crab, because it has one claw which is very large and as it runs it holds this claw up as if beckoning. There are some kinds which carry anemones in their claws to hide them from enemies or the creatures they intend to attack, while others allow shell fish to settle on them so that they cannot be seen. The biggest of all crabs is one which lives in the Islands in the Pacific. It digs a deep burrow at the roots of the coconut palm, in which it lives, and it eats the nuts which fall. To do so it strips off the fibre with its large claws, then knocks away at the eyes of the nut until it has made a hole. Through this hole the crab pushes its smaller claws and draws out the food from the nut. It sometimes hits the nut heavily upon the ground with its claws to break it. This crab can be eaten and it is also melted down by the natives to get the oil which comes from it. FOR WISE HEADS Word Square: 1. —An effigy. -•—A worker in brick or stone. 3. —An English racecourse. 4. —A farmyard bird. 5. —To penetrate. * * * Answer to last week’s word square: Verse. Enact. Rajah. Scare. Ether. IN ALASKA She was in Alaska, looking over a fox farm. After admiring a beautiful silver specimen she asked her guide: ‘‘Just how many limes can the fqx be skinned for his fur?” '■’Three times, madame,” said the guide gravely. ‘As more than that would spoil his temper.”