The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1899-09-01
BLUE CRAB AND MINNOW.
When the Willy Crab Gets the Timi1
MinnOw and When the Min
now Gets the Crab.

The blue crab is pretty fair hand at
catching fish. 1t will lie in shallow
water motionless, with its pinccr claws
extended and pincers open, waiting for
a chance to nip 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 it will hold motionless in
one claw shred of something on which
it has been feeding as 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 it can shed it's 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 i'll which it can stay after it
has shed its shell until it is strong
enough to 60 ;hoout. 1t digs the sand
or mud up around from under itself.
and, as likely as not, leaves its discard
cd shell, in a most lifclike form. up on
the sand on the edge of the hole in
front of it. This shell would brighten
away some small fishes that would
not dare to tackle crab in its ordi-
nary condition. The discarded shell is
a help to fishermen who are hunting
may be found, and wcakfSh, 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 q fisherman
would do.
When the crab first sheds its shell 1t
is perfectly helpless. Its new shell is
as yet so soft that it is no protection
to it and no seaport; the crab cannot
even stand up. The shell hardcns 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 it is help
less.
That is when the E.lnnow gets the
crab. The crab may have been lc
by the reccding tide above the edge
of the water. When the incoming tide
has agaia 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 it. If I'M
disturbed the minnows swarming
around the helpless crab will kill and
eat it. But sometimes another blue
crab will appear and break up the min
nows' feast. This is blue crab that
has not shed its shell, but has its armor
on. 1t comes stalking in among the
minnows, perhaps nipping one of them
In one of its pinccr claws as it comes
up, and dispensing the rest.
The blue crab is cannibal; it 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
Sun.