The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-09-01
BILL WYE A-CRABBING.
Boston Globe.

height. Hot, but wealthy people, are now arriving by every boat in eror- nous crowds. Old people, beautiful young women and ostracised children are to be found here in great quanti- ties. All classes except young men are to be found. Several attractive young men would certainly do we'll here this summer. As it is now, even the boys who are large enough to smoke half cigar without getting sick are greedily snapped up.
 Grabbing is one of the sports along the sea-girt shores of Long Branch and Pleasure Bay. The straw ride, grabbing and faro serve to give zest to life and make the season pass pleas antly. Many varieties of crabs are found in the bosom of the vasty deep, from the European hermit crab to the speckled pachyderm of the Red sea.
 The cancerous growth known as the zodiac crab is not edible.
 Along the coast of the United States, north of the Chesapeake, we find the Lupea dicantha, which is a very toothsome viand when cooked with his contents. He has a figure somewhat like that of an overgrown tarantula, but unlike the latter is ab- solutely without mane and tail. He sheds his shell at certain seasons, dur ing which time he is called alshedder, and he does not sing while moulting. The soft-shell crab, which is fried in butter and devoured by the epicures ot New York, has very unique way of shedding the hard shell when he outgrows it. He begins by extend ing himself to his full height in such & way as to rupture his wrappings in a slight degree, when he begins grad ually to work out little at time until he has successfully shucked himself. It is apparently about as easy as it would be for man to re- move collar button and then emerge gradually through the aperture thus left, or for Jay Gould to enter the kingdom of heaven accompanied by a round house and the rolling stock of his various roads.
 The crab of commerce differs from the land crab which lives in the inter- for, only going once year to the sea coast to deposit it's eggs. At these seasons the land crabs frequently form in huge processions l50 feet wide and over three miles in length. In Jamaica the land crab is regarded as extremely edible.
 The Long Branch crab loves to hover about the bathing resorts and bite the limbs of beauty. The male cro h hoe m aopoo of dol;ooou apd x,a~xy often by his abrupt ways gives much needless pain. The female crab lays the eggs for the family.
 Grabbing is done in several ways. You can tie the head of a fish to a twine string and succeed just as we'll as you would with an expensive rod and reel.
 went grabbing last week in Pleas ure bay and enjoyed it very much. It is different from hdnting elephants or pulling tiger out of his lair by the tail, being safer and less exciting. I have hunted the coon in the south with more or less success, stepped on the trail of the Indian and apologized for it afterwards, supplied the regular army for two weeks with buffalo meat slain by these fair hands, snared suckers in Illinois, hunted Anarchists, spent the evening with a vigilance committee, played bean-bag with some of our best people, and been ar- rested on the Bowery by roundsman with two-dollar "Ten- -Nights- in-a- Barroom breath but never enjoyed my self better in my life than I did crab ping on the smooth surface of the bay with cotton string and fish head.
 James Whitcomb Riley also soaked the cold and pulseless features of dead fish in the calm and crab-in- Tested waters. Ever and anon he would burst forth into song. The low refrain would start up kind of easy, like the beginning of an anthem, and then it would swell out in places, and, arising to height of seven or eight feet, it would then safely die away like the vail of the damned. Sometimes he would tell me what he had been singing, and could see by the words Of the song that it was SO and that he was right about it.
 The sweet smell of the hay field came lightly across the water and kissed the dolce farina ineaments or our sleeping sail The low plaint of the cuckoo clock and the gentleman from New York who had just been presented with his bill was borne across the dimpled bosom of the tide.
 Then James Whitcomb Riley again burst forth into song. He has . good voice. It is rich and full with notches cut in it, 90 that when he gets up to a high note he can hold on without dipping cog or aatting. l tried to sing with him, but could not do so successfully ss all. Our party said that I had more soul than voice, while