The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1899-09-13
BLUE CRAB AND MINNOw.
When the willy Crab Gets the TfmiA
Minnow and When the MINI
now Gets the Crab.

The blue crab is pretty fair hand at
catching fish. 1t will lie in shallow
water motionless, with it's pincer claws
extended and pincers open, waiting for
chance to nip minnow. n one COM
ing swimming along through the water
should happen to pass between those
open jaws, suddenly the jaws close and
that is the last Of the minnow. But
the blue crab can do better than this,
sometimes 1t will hold motionless in
one claw shred of something on which
1t has been feeding as a bait for min
nows, holding at the same time its 9TH
er big claw, with the pincer open, wait
ing. The minnows come up, charging
for the food held in the closed claw;
but there are likely to be enough of
them to spread, and they may come
from various directions, so that more
than likely one will come within the
waiting pincers of the opposite claw,
and when one does the proceedings are
closed for the time being.
But sometimes the minnows get the
blue crab; as they may do when the
crab is shedding. The crab knows when
that time is coming, and then it makes
for place where II can shed its shell
and stay in safety until it's new shell
is sufficiently hard to protect it. The
crab comes in with the tide and makes
for some place on the bottom in shall
low water, perhaps along the edge of
the eel grass, or under some protecting
patch OF ulva, and then proceeds to
dig hole in which 1t can stay after 1t
has shed its shell until 1t Is strong
enough TO go about. 1t digs the sand
or mud up around from under itself,
and, as likely as not, leaves it's discard
ed shell, in a most lifelike form, up on
the sand on the edge of the hole in
front Of 1t. This shell would brighten
away some small fishes that would
not dare to tackle crab in its ordi-
nary condition. The discarded shell Is
help to fishermen who are hunting
crabs, because it shows where crab
may be found, and weakfish, which
come inshore in shallow water to feed,
hunt up soft crabs by searching the
neighborhood of the spot where they
find a shell, just as fisherman
would do.
When the crab first sheds it's shell 1t
is perfectly helpless. Its new shell is
as yet so soft that IL is no protection
to It and no support; the crab cannot
even stand up. The shell hardens rap
idly, and It may be that by the time
of the next full tide the crab will be
able to move about and defend itself;
but for time after 1t sheds 1t Is help
less.
That is when the minnow gets the
Grab. The crab may have been left
by the receding tide above the edge
of the water. When the incoming tide
has again covered the crab and sur
rounded 1t with water to the depth Of
an inch or two the minnows may dis
cover it, and they come swimming
along through the shallow water to
attack it. Sometimes fisherman dis
covers soft crab by the splashing that
the minnows kick up around 1t. If I'M
disturbed the minnows swarming
around the helpless crab will kill and
eat 1t. But sometimes another blue
crab will appear and break up the min
nows' feast. This 10 a blue crab that
has not shed its shell, but has it's armor
on. 1t comes stalking In among tho
minnows, perhaps nipping one Of them
in one of it's pincer claws as 1t comes
up, and dispensing the rest.
The blue crab is cannibal; 1t will
eat its own kind. If when this crab
comes up there is any Of the soft crab
left the newcomer will very likely eat
that first, with one claw holding mean
while In its other the wriggling min
now which IT had seized at the out
set, keeping that to top off within. Y.
/ Sun.