The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-05-19
A Story of the Crab.


Grabs can see but cannot hear; crabs
can remember and can communicate; ;
crabs are sensitive TO any vibration of the
ground; crabs are inquisitive; crabs are
docile and crabs can smell.
Eight months of constant association
with crabs, eight months in which many
leisure and lonely hours were occupied in
watching and studying crabs, gave five
men who lived on Chipperton Island for
that period of time the opportunity to get
on friendly, even familiar, relations with
the red crabs that infest by millions that
strange equatorial coral isle. They were
the employees of a phosphate company.
and were preparing the cargo of
schooner in which they returned re-
Gently from the island. They made the
following observations: The crab can see,
but he is near-sighted. At distance of
25 feet he can observe a man walking
along the beach, but at that distance he
cannot see distinctly, for he ambles after
the man to satisfy his enormous curiosity.
He cannot hear. Shouts or other noises.
even close by the crab have not the
slightest effect upon him. He pursues
his even sideway, inconsiderate alike of
the harsh guffaw or the rich song of the
mans voice. Yet of movement of foot
on the sand, of the merest touch on the
ground, he has knowledge Immediately
and proceeds to explore the cause of the
vibration of his territory. A little water
poured from bucket upon the sand is
sufficient to call a conven tion of crabs
from circuit of many feet. The expla-
nation is that the crab is exceedingly SEN
sltive to the merest vibration of the
ground from unaccustomed cause.
The crab is more curious than any
woman. One of the men stuck a stake
upright on the beach. At least one of
every twelve of the crabs which passed
that way laboriously climbed that stake
to the top and then awkwardly wriggled
down. the other side. When the men
were building their houses from the lum-
Der they carried thither by schooner, the
crabs crawled up the sides in such num-
berS that they had to be swept away so
that the men could work A derrick
twenty-six feet high was erected for use
in the occupation in which the men were
engaged. The morning after it was raised
the men found four inquisitive crabs on
the top bar seeing what they could see
Grabs can smell. A piece of meat was
placed on the ground. The crabs on the lee
ward side for long distance gathered to
feast while the era BIS, even those close
to the meat on the windward side. gave
no attention to the banquet and con
tinued their march in uninterrupted So
lemnity.
The GROWING achievement in the
dominion is the discovery that crabs re-
member and communicate These con-
clusions came from the experiences of the
men in keeping the era bs from intruding
upon the privacy of the dwellings they
built upon the fat and treeless plain.
When they began their work they were
harrassed almost TO death by the inquis-
tive shellbsh. After the cabins were
finished, the crabs, unlimited, came in TO
inspect what was done
To keep them out, the doors were kent
constantly closed, and sheets of tin were
nailed along the threshold Then a sys-
tenn Of regular instruction of the crab in
the way he should 90 began Boards
we're placed around the houses, and every
time crab set claw in a board he was
swept OF by a broom. In this education
, broom was worn out but the crabs
we're taught. After daily, hourly, min
utely sweeping of crabs from the boards,
the crabs ceased altogether their
incursions uron the planks. If a
board were laid down on the sand no
crab would even touch it. Therefore
the men say the crabs can remem-
Der. Therefore they say that crabs can
communicate. 1t is a physical impossi.
olllty that every crab on the island
should have been sweptof those boards.
yet no crab wiggled his way on them
after the system of severe education was
fully accomplished. Therefore the sweut
crabs must have informed the unswept
crabs that boards were not healthfu
places for them to visit. How else could
they know that boards were not for their
promenade