Read Ebook: Nature readers by Wright Julia McNair

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Ebook has 895 lines and 20312 words, and 18 pages

LESSON PAGE

XL. HOW SHELL-FISH FEED 84

SEA-SIDE AND WAY-SIDE.

MR. AND MRS. CRAB.

This is a picture of Mr. and Mrs. Crab.

Do you see the round hole?

It is the door of their house.

Mr. Crab lives in the sand by the sea-side.

He has a smooth, flat shell on his back.

The crab has eight legs and two hands.

One hand is large; the other hand is small.

He fights with the big hand, and takes his food with the little hand, or with both hands.

Mr. Crab digs out his house in the sand. He makes a place for a hall, a bed-room, and a pantry.

Mrs. Crab does not dig.

Both her hands are small and weak.

She gets food to put into the pantry.

She never fights.

If she is in any trouble she runs home, or to a hole in a rock.

See what queer eyes!

They are set on pegs; some call them stalks.

The crab can push the eye-pegs out and pull them in.

Would you not look odd if you could make your eyes stand out six inches?

When crabs go into their houses, they draw down their eyes and tuck in their feet.

Crabs are of many colors.

They are red, brown, green, yellow, and blue.

The claws are often of a very bright color.

The color on the shell is less bright; it is in small dots.

The color on some kinds of crabs is in lines.

No crab is clear, bright red when it is alive.

When it is boiled it takes a fine, red hue.

Why is this?

We cannot tell why the heat makes it change color.

MR. CRAB AND HIS HOUSE.

The water of the sea comes and goes in tides.

Twice each day the water rises--then it is high tide.

After each high tide the water goes back--then it is ebb tide.

Each tide lasts six hours.

When the snow melts in the spring, or when much rain falls, the water rises high in the brook.

In the dry, hot days the water is low in the bed of the stream.

If the stream or brook were full and low twice each day, the change would be like the high and low tides of the sea.

When the tide is low, Mr. Crab digs out his house.

He scoops out the sand with his big claw.

Then he folds his claw to carry the sand, as you can carry grass or leaves on your arm.

Some kinds of crabs carry the sand in three of their feet, bent to form a basket.

Mr. Crab takes the sand to the top of his hole.

Then, with a jerk, he throws the sand into a heap.

The crab is very strong.

He can lift and carry things larger than his body.

He digs out a long hall.

He makes rooms in his house.

Then he goes with his wife to look for food.

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