The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-09-19
SOMETHING ABOUT CRABS.

Like everything else in this wonderful
land of ours, the taste for crabs and crab
meat is growing. When the adventurous
spirit leaves the Atlantic coast to revolu-
tionize the prairie, he is willing to swear
his new home is the only greatest ON earth,
but his heart, or at least his palate and his
memory, banker after the flesh-pots of this,
the land of good living. And among the
first things he ''goes for, in the gastrono-
mic line, are soft-shelled crabs. He knows
their season and he takes them in; but
there are many who eat them who know
very little of their peculiarities AS all per-
sons are supposed to know, soft-shelled
crab is one that has cast its shell and has
not yet acquired another hard covering.
The season during which they shed is from
first part of September. A crab sheds but
once a year. They come up on the first
flood of the tide, and work their way up to
highwater mark and shed about the time
of high water. In shedding, crabs are
first ''peelers, so-called from the ease with
which the shell will peel off; and then
CLUSTERS" which is just before they shed.
After having cast their shell, they crawl
down to low water, where they remain un-
til the next tide, which will be generally
about twenty-four hours, in which time the
new shell gets hard enough to allow them
to move off in the water There is no pc
culiarity in this SO far as known; the male
and female both shed their shells. There
is no positive data among fishermen as to
how often crab will shed; but there
comes an age to them when they cease
shedding and the shell gets very hard.
This has been proven by the taking of
crabs so old that they had barnacles on
them, such as would require time to pro-
duce.
When too old to shed, the crab takes to
deep water becomes very red, and are
known as ''Indian' crabs, from the color.
BY nature they are not only carniverous but
cannibalistc. A hard-shell crab will de-
your any soft-shell friend he may meet.
They are often seen in the Chesapeake bay
These latter are usually called their wives,
but it is noticed that before they are done
with them the wives are generally eaten up.
Within few years it has been found
that deep water fishing for crabs gives
heavier results than the shallower, although
it was for long time belief that the crab
was more numerous in shallow water.
There is some belief recently expressed
iniure the oyster spawn during the closed
season. The fresh water crabs of the
lakes, and known as ''craw fish, are called
here 'fiddlers," and have one large and
one small claw; this class of crabs never
she'd
The little red crabs found in oysters are
also different species, which apparently
never grow more than half an inch long,
and are rounder in body than the large
crab. They are the ever-present enemy OF
salt oysters, and their presence is evidence
that the oysters are from the sea or water
directly connected with it. They will get
inside the shell of the oyster and live off it,
eventually causing its death. There is
species of commercial crab" used exclu-
sively for making ''deviled" crabs, which
does not belong to any of the above vari-
cites, and appear most numerously when
others are most scarce. 1t has the shell of
the ordinary crab, and the desicated con-
tents so nearly resemble Goldfish smothered
in all-hot contrivances, that the ancient
firemen, after which it was named, could
not tell what it originally was, but it serves
for a ''deviled crab"