Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IX.djvu/858

 838 KING CRAB KING FISH with bluish ash on the sides of the throat and across the breast ; the wings dark brown, the greater coverts and quills edged with white; tail broadly margined and tipped with white. It is found throughout eastern North America to the Rocky mountains, and in Washington territory. According to Audubon, the king bird arrives in Louisiana from the south about the middle of March ; it proceeds gradually to the north, going, back about the last of August. It prefers orchards, fields of clover, and the vi- cinity of houses, being seldom found in woods ; the flight is rapid, performed by alternate flap- pings and sailings, much in the manner of our robin. The intrepidity of the king bird is re- markable, as it does not hesitate to attack the crow, vultures, hawks, eagles, and even cats and other animals approaching the nest, plung- ing upon their backs and striking with the bill ; it is the farmer's friend in protecting eggs from the crow and chickens from the hawk, and in devouring noxious insects ; and yet on account of its eating a few bees, raspberries, and figs, it is very generally persecuted. The nest is made in trees, and the eggs, four to six, are reddish white with irregular spots of brown. The notes are tremulous and sharp, and uttered continuously during flight. Many are shot in the southern states, where their flesh is con- sidered a delicacy. KING CRAB, or Horse-shoe Crab, a common name for the limuloid group of the entomos- tracan order of crustaceans, from their large size and peculiar form. This order is the lowest of the class, as the segments and feet are fewer than in the other orders. In the genus limulus (xipftosura, Milne-Edwards), the tail is reduced to a mere spine, and the bases of the first six pairs of legs, being rough with points, perform King Crab 1. Lower surface. 2. Dpper surface. the functions of jaws, their free extremities ending in nipping claws. The whole upper surface is protected by a kind of buckler, made up of an anterior semicircular shield, and a posterior hexagonal plate, to the hinder margin of which is jointed the long sharp spine of the tail ; the branchial appendages are on the un- der surface of the posterior plate. The Molucca king crab attains a size of 2 to 3 ft., and both eggs and flesh are eaten by the Malays; the spine attached to a spear makes a formidable weapon. Our common species (limulus poly- phemus) also grows very large on the Atlantic coast of the middle states, and is of a blackish brown color ; its flesh is sometimes given to pigs and poultry, but, while it fattens them, imparts a bad flavor to their meat; on the New England coast the size is small, and their delicate yellowish cast-off shells are frequently thrown upon the beaches. The legs are feeble, and the use of the tail seems to be to enable it to turn over by a kind of spring, should its wide flat body be thrown by the waves upon its back ; the anterior limbs in the male are short, stout, and swelled, with nippers for hold- ing the female. The eggs, fertilized in sum- mer as they are extruded, are placed in a hole excavated in the sand on the edge of high tide, the sand at once covering them ; their hatch- ing is thus aided by the heat of the sun until the tide rises again. The eggs of the king crabs are very tenacious of life. The extinct eurypteridce are closely allied, and some, as pterygotus, attained a length of 6 ft. Dr. Pack- ard, in the " Memoirs and Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History," 1870-'72, and " Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science," 1870, has shown that the larva, which hatches in about six weeks, bears a striking resemblance to the trilobites ; he therefore regards the paciloptera, or the king crab and its allies, as a subdivision of the branchiopods. Prof. Van Beneden, on the contrary (1872), thinks that the king crabs are not crustaceans, having none of their char- acteristic phases of development, but show the closest resemblance to scorpions and other arachnids; and that trilobites, eurypterida and pwcilopoda, must form with the arachnids a distinct division. Considering the palaeozoic trilobites as the lowest, the next series in time and in rank would be such forms as eurypterus and pterygotus, the limulus or king crab being the highest, and beginning to appear as the trilobites were dying out ; some forms of trilo- bites had a spiny tail like limulus. KING FISH, the common name of the perch- like, scisenoid fishes of the genus umbrina, es- pecially the U. nebulosa (Storer) or U. alburnus (De Kay), the former being regarded by Storer as the northern and the latter as the southern species. It is of a dull gray color, with silvery reflections on the sides and irregular dark bars, one broad one extending straight backward from the end of the pectorals to the tail ; be- neath, yellowish; extremities of first dorsal, pectorals, and ventrals white, rays black, sec- ond dorsal and base of pectorals and ventrals yellowish. Body elongated, snout blunt, lips fleshy, jaws with numerous small card-like teeth ; small fleshy cirrhus under chin ; length 16 to 17 in. ; weight 1 to 2 Ibs. It is a deep