Identifier: littlefolksinfea00mill (find matches)
Title: Little folks in feathers and fur, and others in neither
Year: 1875 (1870s)
Authors: (Miller, Harriet (Mann) Mrs.), 1831- (from old catalog)
Subjects: Zoology
Publisher: Hartford, Conn., Dustin, Gilman & co. Cincinnati, Ohio, Queen city publishing co. (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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meat out of the hard shell of the nut ? There are twodifferent stories of the way the Robber Crab gets his food, andboth told by trustworthy men; so we have to believe that both aretrue. One story says, that the Crab tears off the fibres coveringthe nut, digs out the eyes—those soft places in one end of the 232 LITTLE FOLKS nut—and works his claw around in the hole, till he digs out themeat. Another story says that after peeling off the husk, he getshis claw into one of the eyes, and beats the nut on a stone till itbreaks. This Crab is more than two feet long, and when walkingabout on his toes, like the common Crabs in the picture, he is afoot from the ground. He makes a home for himself by digginga hole under the roots of the cocoa-nut tree, lining it with cocoa-nut husks, and filling a convenient store-room with nuts laid awayfor winter. But here is a very different sort of a Crab, not much likethose I have been telling about. See what a delicate body he has,and what long legs.
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He is a slim Sea Crab, and he runs about on the bottom ofthe sea. There are many kinds of Sea Crabs, and very droll fellowsthey are, too. Many of them hide themselves under perfect loadsof sponge, and other sea things, and a specimen is shown in theBritish Museum of one on which were fastened several oysters—actually growing on the Crabs back. Besides the Running Crabs there are the Swimming Crabs, whohave the last pair of feet made flat, and the last joint spread outlike an oar blade, so that they can swim as well as a fish. Like all IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 233 the rest of the Crab family, they are fierce and voracious, huntingtheir prey through the water, and eating everything that has life,nearly. Such greedy fellows they are, that they eat each other asreadily as anybody else. A small Crab has no chance for his lifewhen a larger one gets after him. They seem to have very littlefeeling, however. One naturalist tells about seeing a small Crabbusily engaged with his dinner, when a lar

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