Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/178

166 known as the oyster-crab. Fishermen have insisted to me that it was the young of the edible crab. No naturalist, not even a tyro, could make this mistake. Naturalists have named this little crab, Pinotheres ostreum. Usually it is the female that one finds in the oyster. The male is much more rarely met with, and is smaller than the female, and of more sombre coloring. A dull brown is the predominant hue, though the legs are white. On the back is a figure remarkably like an anchor, done in white. But the history of the oyster-crab is imperfectly known. For aught that we have been able to learn, this pretty little crab is a harmless commensal. Whether it is always welcome by its entertainer we cannot say, but this is sure, Pinotheres has always been known as the oyster's bosom friend.

There is a story that General Washington was very fond of these oyster-crabs, and that, knowing this fact, a lady admirer, at whose house in New York the general was to dine, had an understanding with the different oystermen of the city, and their combined efforts got together half a pint of these diminutive crabs, which were served up and set before that eminent man, greatly to his surprise and delight. In the season, this little crab is readily obtained put up in half-pint bottles. Now that they have become a staple luxury in the city markets, why do not our epicures call them "Washington crabs?"

—The above must be set down as the rosy side of oyster-life, for they are a much-persecuted race. Though a sober people, always leading quiet lives, yet they seem to be regarded on all sides as possessing no rights that others are bound to respect. Let us make a visit to one of these orderly communities in Oysterdom known as a "planting-ground." We are seated in a boat, and, gliding through the phosphorescent sheen, soon near the oyster-bed. It is a moonlight night, about the close of summer. Hark! what singular sound is that? Boom! boom! boom! Almost sepulchral, and, strange to say, it comes up from beneath the waters. One would think they were Nereids' groans. The oystermen, whose capital lies invested there, hear it with sad forebodings of loss, which they cannot well sustain. It is one of a school of visitors who come with marauding purpose. The fishermen call it the big drum. This drum-fish is known among naturalists by the name Pogonias chromis. The acknowledged beat of this scamp is the Gulf Stream, from Cape Cod to Florida; and a terrible fellow is this' Pogonias, for he is recorded as having attained the great weight of eighty pounds. One of twenty-five pounds would be but an ordinary affair. Their mouths are furnished with pavements of hard teeth, a little rounding on the top, and set together exactly as are the cobble-stones of the old city highways. The function of these dental pavements is to crunch the young oysters, which after being crushed are thus swallowed, shells and all. As these monsters come in shoals, they sometimes inflict serious damage on an oyster-bed. Not long ago, at Keyport, New Jersey, a visit