Lexington gazette. [volume] (Lexington, Va.) 1871-1962, 1909-07-14
THE SAILOR CRAB.
Makes Long Voyages at Sea o. the
Backs Of Turtles.

Among the many curious crabs
there is perhaps none more inter
esting than the sailor crab, name
applied to it because it goes to sea
on long voyages, which it makes on
the backs of big green turtles and
giant loggerheads.
The sailor crab is a little fellow
with a body three-quarterS of an
inch or an inch in length. With its
claws extended it might measure an
inch and half. 1t is very pretty
crab indeed, with color markings
that are various. 1t may be found
with a shell all yellow or with a
shell of dark colors with lighter
shadings like those Of finished tor
toise she'll, or it may have a mot
tied shell or shell whose coloring
resembles that of veined marble.
1t seems all the prettier seen amid
its rough surroundings on the big
loggerhead's dingy brown shell.
The big loggerhead, with a top
shell six or seven feet in length,
may afford a floating home for va
rious other living things. Barna-
cles attach to it and there live their
lives, travelling with it wherever it
goes, as do barnacles that attach to
vessels. Marine vegetation that
lodges on its back may there stick
and thrive just as it would attached
to rocks, gathering in clumps or
streaming back from it when the
big turtle is in motion just as it
might from rocks washed by flow
ing tide, and in this vegetation
may be found various minute forms
of animal life. Some day when the
big turtle, with all this life on its
back, swims into shallower waters
to feed or works its way through
some floating mass of seaweed one
or two sailor crabs may come
aboard, shipping thus for a long
voyage.
To the sailor crab thus embarked
the big turtle may not seem like a
sea washed moving continent, but it
might easily seem like stable is
land with many places to roam.
When the turtle is asleep, lying
still upon the waters, the little
sailor crab may wander out to the
end of one Of its long extended
Aippers as it might to the end OF
some peninsula, and then it may
come back to find its way among
the meadows or the forests Of veg
citation on the turtles back, and If
it is hungry, why, while the barna-
cles in their fixed places are reach
ing out with their delicate fingers
and sweeping the adjacent waters
as with a net to draw in their sus-
tenance the sailor crab can move
about in the vegetation and find
food.
Or the sailor crab may find food
in the scraps that come to it from
the turtles table. The loggerhead
is both a vegetable and flesh feed
err. 1t will eat sea grass or what
ever crustaccans it can catch or
fish.
It might seem that the big log
gerhead. couldn't catch fish. But it
is a great swimmer, and it will
smash into school Of fish and snap
ND what it wants, and scraps from
this float back to the lodge on the
turtles back and there furnish food
for the sailor. So the sailor crab
at sea on the turtles back is likely
to get enough to eat, but it has to
be always on the lookout not to be
swept off the ships deck to be lost
in the ocean or there devoured by
some bigger creature.
When the turtle is under way or
there is heavy sea running it must
hold on tight with its sharp claws,
and it may find a refuge somewhere
in the vegetation, but it is more
likely to go clean aft and creep
over the edge Of the shell at the
base of the turtles back to where
it can find a shelter and q lee. 1t
is there the sailor crabs have often
est been found on loggerheads
which have come from the tropics
in summer and been taken in local
waters.-New York Sun,
No Case.