The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1890-09-03
A CRUSTACEAN COLLECTION
AN EXTRAORDINARY EXHIBITION
OF GRABS AND LoBSTERS,
"Trilobites" Twenty Millions of Years
Old--A Forty Pound Lobster
The t{iu Coooanut Crab

The Big Coooanut Grab.
The most wonderful exhibition Of crabs
and HOLSTERS ever seen in this world will
be placed on permanent view in Wash
ington as soon as the Smithsonian Insti-
tute gets its new building. At present
the collection is stored away out of sight,
for want space to show it properly. In
this exhibition will be displayed for the
instruction of the nation members of the
crustacean family that were actually alive
during the earliest geological epoch
twenty millions of years ago.
These "trilobites," as they are called,
were contemporary with the earliest
creatures that lived upon the earth. They
are taken out of the rock to-day as per-
feet as when they were inclosed in the
shelly mud 200, 900 centuries ago; the
very facets of their eyes are rs distinct as
in life. If you like you may find any
number of their direct descendants in the
horseshoe crabs on the sea beach. The
horseshoe crabs, indeed, may fairly be
called the oldest creature in the world,
being but a slightly modified trilobite,
and thus representing the very most an
cient family that anything is known
about. In comparatively modern times
only 18, 900, 900 years ago-some crus-
taceans attained great size. Frogs in
those days used to grow as big as men
are now, and thought nothing of hopping
two or three blocks distance at one
jump; it was the age of things gigantic,
and a lobster.like creature, six feet in
length, called the "pterygotus, prowled
the watery shadows then in search of
prey.
1t is not so very many years now since
HOLSTERS were captured weighing as much
as forty pounds apiece. There is one
such in the Smithsonian collection, three
feet long in the body and with claws big
and strong enough to crush your clenched
fist. Unfortunately the business of lob
sters has been carried on for century or
so past with so much eagerness that all
the big ones pretty nearly have been taken
and eaten.
To find giant crustacean to-day you
must go to the eastern shore of Asia,
where disports himself the enormous
japanese crab, which has claws which
spread twelve feet. Even the crabs of
Rider Haggard's fancy did not attain the
dimensions of this Asiatc realty. One
of the most extraordinary of the Smith
sonian's specimens is ''cocoanut crab"
"A tremendously powerful looking crea-
ture, so big that when tightly folded up
it will fill r-gallon glass jar. This
is the crab that climbs the cocoanut tree,
and after plucking the fruit tears off the
outer husk with its mighty claws and
then knocks in the shell in one of the
"eyes," subsequently digging out the
meat with the long and narrow pair of
incers provided by nature for this pur-
pose. This cocoanut crab inhabits the
islands of the Indian ocean. 1t accumu-
lates surprising quantities of the picked
tibers of the cocoanut, which it uses as a
bed; the flesh is very good to eat, and
under its tail is mass of fat which some
times yields as much as a quart Ot. limpid
oil Among other strange crabs in the
Smithsonian collection is a smaller va
riety of this same species which lives in
a burrow at the root of a fruit tree.
Then there is the ''painted crab' of the
| West Indies, which is a land animal; it
used to exist there in countless numbers,
and INDUCED annually in migration to
the sea coast, moving always in a compact
army. During such migrations they were
caught in great numbers and so have be-
come almost extinct. A crab from the
Barbados is remarkable for its swiftness
in running, which has given it the name
of the ''horseman crab" The "dorippe"
is a species of crab quite plentiful on the
shores of the Adriatic, which has two
legs on its back-a great inconvenience,
since, if turned bottom side up, it can
run just as well that way.
One remarkable crab in the Smithso-
nian collection is entirely covered with
what looks like whitish moss, but is in
reality something between the vegetable
and the animal. All crabs of that va
! riety have a coat of this sort to render
them indistinguishable by their enemies
and unrecognizable by their prey. An
other kind of crab is always covered en-
tirely with growing sponge, save only
his eyes, antennG and the tips of his
| claws. He hides in crevices where
sponge grows among the rocks, and be-
| comes as much like them as he knows
HoN' n Cldo lIOlu luC IdClNC coast IS
| invariably found with sea anemones
growing all over his back and legs.
Another from the same region has large
tubes with which it sucks water into its
lungs by way of breathing. Still an
other California crab has a very neatly
made snutI-box underneath its body for
holding eggs, which closes with snap
fastening just like real snuif-box. A
crab with long beak and legs that
| look like straws is also from the Pa
cifc.
One of the tiercest crabs known is
plentiful on the coast of South America.
1t is also called the "rock crab 'aud hides
in crevices among stones. 1t is captured
generally by dropping hook on the eud
Of a string into its lair, when it will seize
the hook in anger and permit itself to be
hauled out by its own grip, which is so
strong that the claw will still bite pow
erfully after it has been pulled of from
the animal. A funny crab is the "mess-
mate" which one finds in oysters; it
does not harm the bivalve, but merely
lives in the shell with it and feeds upon
whatever the oyster gets to 1t Chicago
Times.