San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1895-10-28
HORSESHOE CRABS.
Their Uses as Fertilizer. Food for Chickens
and Hogs and Boat Bailers.


she spawning season the crabs crawl
up the sandy, shelving shore in pairs,
male and female, to spawn. They
come up usually on the flood making
the shore at about half tide, so that
there will be time to deposit the eggs
and get back in one tide without leav
ing the water. They settle down ami
dig the sand out from under them ami
begin to bury themselves. The female
horseshoe is twice as big as the male,
and sometimes the male crab is entire
ly buried, while the back of the female
may be visible. They dig down per-
haps six or eightinches and the female
deposits the eggs The eggs are very
small, about the size of mustard seed,
and there may be hundreds or thou
sands in single crab. The crabs may
remain in the nests three or four
hours, going back into the water with
the receding tide. Sometimes they
stay over a tide. Sometimes, left by
the water, they get out of the nests
and crawl down into it.
The spawning season begins in May
and extends through June and into
July. The same female crab may de-
post spawn in two or three different
places. The eggs in the nest are more
or less mixed with sand by the constant
action of the water and the movements
of the crabs legs. When the crab
leaves the nest it may be four inches
deep; single tide fills it up and leaves
the sand over it as level as floor,
with nothing to indicate its presence.
The spawning places of the crabs are
known, however, and if the nests
are dug up the eggs are found in va.
rious stages of development, from the
tiny seed up to eggs an eighth of an
inch in diameter, in which the little
horseshoe may be seen. At low-water
mark there may be found little horse
shoes an eighth of an inch across and
without tails. The little horseshoe
may have tail in month. or perhaps
within week after emerging from
the egg.
An average-sized, full-grown horse
shoe or king crab would be one meas
uring about eleven inches in width
and sixteen or seventeen inches in
| length over all, from the front part of
the shell to the tip of the tail. A fish
erman of experience says that the big
gest horseshoe he ever saw measured
| twenty-six and one-half inches from
the front of the shell to the tip
| of the tail and fourteen inches in
width. 1t takes the horseshoe years to
attain full growth
The horseshoe's shell is divided
about two-thirds of the way back from
the front. The two portions are joined
| by hinge across the back, which
gives the rear portion of the she'll play
| and aids in swimming. The tail is at
| tached to the body with what is in
effect ball and socket joint; within
| its limits the tail can be moved in any
| direction. The horseshoe's legs, twelve
in number, are under the forward por-
ton of the body; the swimmerets are
| under the rear portion; it uses both in
| swimming, and it then appears to use
| the tail as a rudder The full-grown
| horseshoe can swim, but it doesn't
swim very much; it gets about mostly
| on its legs The younger horseshoeG
| are more likely to swim, and they swim
| with some facility and with what APP
pears to be fair degree of confidence;
but, after all, the real home of the
horseshoe crab is on the bottom. There
its tail is of great use; it is a means of
defense against attack from the rear,
and il enables the horseshoe to recover
| itself when it gets turned over on its
back. Then its legs are of little if any
| use, because they are too short; but
| when it can bring its tail to bear it
soon rights itself.
In the spawning season fishermen
along the coast collect the horseshoe
crabs for eel bait. If the crabs are in
water too deep to be reached by hand,
they scoop them up off the bottom
with big dip nets; if the water is only
eighteen or twenty inches deep, they
reach over from the boat and pick
them up by hand, saving the female,
which has the eggs, and throwing
away the male. The entire crab, shell,
meat, eggs and all, is chopped up and
put into eel pots. The cells like the
eggs.
In New Jersey and Delaware horse.
shoe or king crabs are caught to some
extent to be ground up for the manu-.
facture of fertilizer. The fertilizer
mills pay from two and half to five
dollars for crabs, depending on the
supply; they reckon one thousand crabs
to the ton. Horseshoe crabs are also
used as food for chickens, ducks and
hogs, while the shell makes good
boat bailer.
"Once," said a fisherman, II was
pulling small boat along winding
creek through salt meadow. The
muddy sedge bank along this creek
was three or four feet high, but here
and there at turns in the creek there