Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-11-04
WEE cAnNlBAL LoHsrERs.
They Did Caves ms nd. whence They Issue
to Do Fearful Rattle

SrAt<INiofAE IO00 EhS.
They Did Caves ms nd. whence They Issue
to Do Fearful Battle.
By invitation of well-knovn natur.
alist | had not long ago an opportunity
to witness curious sight in an aqua.
rum in which about hundred young
Holsters had been placed
Young Holsters are cannibals of the
very worst type and can give points to
the most terrible man-eater in all
Africa
The Holsters had just passed out of
the swimming stage and were seen
crawling about in the tank. The tank
had glass sides. giving an excellent
chance for observation, and it had a
capacity of about fifty gallons of water.
AT one side of the interior of the
aquarium had been piled large stones
with fiat sides, resting on sand. The
sand was about two inches deep, COW
ering the bottom.
My informant said that the e, st per
formances of the young Holsters when
put into the tank were very interesting.
They gathered around the sides of the
rocks and with their antenna almost
against the stone crossed their claws in
front of them and moving backward
dragged pinches of sand awaT from the
stone. This was repeated again and
again until hole had been made big
enough to hold the little lobster with
space to spare.
Then the crustacean climbed over
the heap of sand into the excavation,
and. turning his tail to the stone, pro-
ceeded to push the particles from the
bottom of the hole to the top of the
heap by placing its two claws together
with the tips tapping so that the sand
! could not side back. In effect the
claws served as a shovel
After the Holsters had in this manner
built for themselves caves for defensive
purposes they planted themselves with
, their backs to the stone and kept their
little black bead-lile eyes rowing out
ward in every direction.
When | took my place to watch moth
ing was stirring.
| Now and then lobster would climb
out of his retreat and explore the i'm
mediate neighborhood.
Suddenly, finding an intrenched lob
ster. the Grant adventurer would as
| sault it Then would ensue the biggest
kind of rough and tumble, catch-as-
catch-can contest It was fight to the
death.
When the struggle was between only
two Holsters the result was usually a
drawn battle, each retreating to his
hole with the loss of claw or of one
or two antenn@.
But when two or three Holsters at
tackled one in his shallow cave the fight
was soon over. The miserable victim
was dragged out on the arena by the
sharp pincers of the besiegers, and in a
trice he was killed 1t required but a
few minutes for the cannibals to dis
member and eat up their victim, drag
ging the bits to different parts of the
aquarium, as dogs would bones.
These attacks are always made at
night was so fortunate as to see an
! other raid, but it was not like that de-
scribed above. One of the Holsters that
had emerged from his lair in pursuit of
food was himself pursued in turn.
Caught mapping away from his castle
by three or four enemies, it scuttled
over the sand toward one corner of the
| aquarium. After him went the pur-
suers, heller SHELTER, and while the pur-
sued resorted to dogding tactics that
would be admired by football rusher
the pursuers separated and closed in
around the doomed creature
1t is by curious instinct that the
pursuit is made in the night, because it
| is evidently to the advantage of the
pursuer, on the principle in war that
night attacks are more successful than
| those by daylight
Marks of these midnight foravs were
to be found in the morning in the frap-
ments of shells. The result of cannibal-
ism among the young Holsters is that
out of a hundred about twenty-five sur
vive, demonstration of the Darwinian
law of the survival of the fittest.
In the cannibal stage of their exist
ence they are about three-quarters of
an inch in length, and when the sur
vivors grow to be two and half inches
in length from the tail to the tip of the
claws they have outgrown their blood
thirsty instincts
1t has only recently been learned that
young Holsters can be reared artifieialIy.
They have to eat each other up first
and the twenty-five per cent remaining
may then be fed on food prepared for
them, such as earth-worms, meat.
chopped oysters and clans, fish or ma
rine worms.
The decrease of the natural supply of
Holsters has compelled scientific men to
investigate their habits Experiments,
so far as they have been pursued, indi-
cate that Holsters may be artifcially
reared for the market, but that they
must be Matched and produced on
large scale to make the enterprise re-
munerative.-N. Y. Herald.