Evening journal., 1899-09-26
BLUE CRAB AND MINNow.
When the willy Crab Gets the TisaiJ
Minnow and When the MIN
now Gets the Crab.

The blue crab is pretty fair hand ar
catching fish. 1t will lie in shallow
water motionless, with its pincer claws
extended and pincers open, waiting for.
a chance to nip a minnow. If 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 il will hold motionless in
one claw SHRED of something on which
it 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 a place where it can shed its shell
and stay in safety until its 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 it can stay after It
has shed its shell until it 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 she'll, in a most lifelilke form, up on
the sand on the edge of the hole in
front Of it. This shell would frighter
away some small fishes that would
not dare to tackle a crab in its ordi
nary condition. The discarded shell Is
help to fishermen who are hunting
crabs, because it shows where a craf
may be found, and wealxfish, which
come inshore in shallow water to feed
hunt up soft crabs by searching tn,
neighborhood of the spot where they
find she'll, just as a fisherman
would do.
When the crab first sheds its she'll /
is perfectly helpless. Its new she'll Il
as yet so soft that it is no protection
to it and no support; the crab canno
even stand up. The shell hardens rap
idly. and it may be that by the tim
of the next full tide the crab will b
able to move about and defend itself
but for a time after IL sheds it is help
less.
That is when the minnow gets tn
crab. The crab may have been lef
by the reeeding tide above the edg
of the water. When the incoming It'd
has again covered the crab and sur
4 rounded it with water to the depth o
an inch or two the minnows may dis
cover it, and they come swimnin
along through the shallow wafer {
attack it. Sometimes a fisherman dis
covers a soft crab by the splashing tha
the minnows kick up around II. II IN
disturbed the minnows swarmin
around the helpless crab will kill an
eat 1t. But sometimes another blu
crab viii appear and break up the mir
nows' feast. This is blue crab tina
, has not shed its shell, but has its armo
? on. 1t comes stalking in among tn
minnows, perhaps nippiug one of theI
in one Of its pincer claws as it come
up, and dispensing the rest.
The blue crab is a cannibal; it wi
2 eat it's own kind. If when this era
= comes up there is any Of the soft era
y left the newcomer will very likely ca
that first, with one claw holding NEAR
while in its other the wriggling mil
now which it had seized at the ou
set, keeping that to top off within. }
d Sun.
Pnwnshops and Banks.
q I - .TsIT