The animal life of our seashore With special reference to the New Jersey coast and the southern shore of Long Island . more. It inhabits the estuarine re-gion, in immediate proximity to fresh water, ratherthan the tidal flats, and, indeed, it appears to beable to get along for weeks, or even months, with-out absolutely requiring salt water. In excavating, the fiddlers throw or push up thepellets of moist earth by means of their anteriorwalking legs, depositing their burden usually atsome little distance from the mouth of the the approach of winter they close up the domi-ciliary apert
The animal life of our seashore With special reference to the New Jersey coast and the southern shore of Long Island . more. It inhabits the estuarine re-gion, in immediate proximity to fresh water, ratherthan the tidal flats, and, indeed, it appears to beable to get along for weeks, or even months, with-out absolutely requiring salt water. In excavating, the fiddlers throw or push up thepellets of moist earth by means of their anteriorwalking legs, depositing their burden usually atsome little distance from the mouth of the the approach of winter they close up the domi-ciliary apertures, and pass into a condition of tor-pidity until the advent of spring. Leaving to their capers the noiseless musiciansof the shore, let us examine somewhat more closelythe forms that nature has fashioned with a littlenearer approach to symmetry. The regularcrabs, in a general way, look very much alike, dif-fering seemingly only in the proportion of parts PLATK 6 Fig. 1. Cancer irroratiis. 2. Libinia canaliciilata. 3. Carciiuis moenas. 4. Callinectes bastatus. 5. Pbityoiiicbus oceUatuf 6. Gebia affinis. PL. OUR CARCINOLOOICAL FRIENDS. 85 and ornamentation. This is, however, a false con-ception, for they differ among themselves not onlym important structural characters, but largely alsoin habit. Some are habitually walkers of the sand,others burrowers in the mud, a few parasitic on dif-ferent animals, and others, again, good number use the floating sea-weed for their home,drifting far into mid-ocean. The famous SargassoSea is a carcinological world of itself. Down toa depth of several thousand feet in the sea thelonely crab lurks about in the darkness, findingcompanionship with the moUusks whose shells itfrequently robs. Again, on mountain-heights of4000 feet elevation or more the land-crab {Birgo) isnot uncommonly met with on its travels. Look at the extremities of the last pair of legsof the soft-shell crab (PL 6, Fig. 4)—the crab parexcellence of the Atlant
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