Bob Strong's Holidays Part 9

"I don't think they would say so if you asked them the question!"

"I'm not hurting them," said Bob in excuse. "I only want to see them closely."

"I suppose you think they are all alike and belong to the same species, eh?" asked the Captain. "Don't you?"

"Well, I don't see much difference in them," replied Bob hesitatingly.

"Do you, Captain Dresser?"

"Humph! yes. I can see in that little pond of yours, now under my eyes, no less than three distinct varieties of the crab family."

"Never!" exclaimed Bob incredulously. "Why, they all look to me the same queer little green-backed things, with legs all over them that they do not know how to use properly."

"While you think, no doubt, that you could teach them better, eh?" said the Captain chuckling; but, the next moment, raising his hat and a graver expression stealing over his face as he looked upward towards the blue vault overhead, he added earnestly--"Ah, my boy, remember they have a wiser teacher than you or I! However, you're wrong about their being all similar. The majority of those you've caught are certainly of the ordinary species of green crab and uneatable, if even they had been of any tolerable size; but, that little fellow there is a young 'velvet fiddler' or 'swimming crab.' If you notice, his hind legs are flattened, so as to serve him for oars, with which he can propel himself at a very good rate through the water if you give him a chance. Look now!"

"I see," cried Bob eagerly. "He's quite different to this other chap here with the long legs."

"Oh that is a 'spider crab.' He is of very similar proclivities to his cousin though he lives ash.o.r.e. The cunning fellow uses his sprawling long limbs in lieu of a web, and will lie in wait in some hole between the rocks, artfully poking his claws out to catch unwary animals--often those of his own or kindred species--as they pa.s.s by his den."

"What is this queer little chap?" asked Nellie, pointing to another, which was partly concealed in an old whelk-sh.e.l.l. "He seems to want to get out and can't."

"Why, my dear, that is the 'hermit crab.' He does not want, though, to leave that comfortable lodging he has secured for himself, as you think.

He's an 'old soldier,' and knows when he's well off! He belongs to what is called the 'soft-tailed' family, and being defenceless astern he has to seek an artificial protection against his enemies, in place of natural armour."

"How funny!" said Nellie, watching the little animal more closely.

"What a queer fellow!"

"Yes," continued the Captain, "and, that is the reason why he goes prowling about for empty sh.e.l.ls. Often, too, really he's such a pugnacious fellow, he will turn the rightful tenant out, taking forcible possession. Just look at his tail and see how it is provided with a pair of pincers at the end. He is enabled by this means to hold on firmly to any sh.e.l.l, no matter how badly it may fit him, which he chooses for his temporary habitation."

As he spoke, the Captain extracted with some little difficulty the buccaneer crab from the whelk-sh.e.l.l, showing its peculiar formation, quite unlike that of the others. A young shrimp who had lost his lat.i.tude was also found in Bob's pond, and the discovery led the old sailor to speak of these animals that form such a pleasant relish to bread-and-b.u.t.ter; and he told them that one of the best fishing-grounds for them was off the Woolsner Shoal, some four miles further along the beach to the eastwards, while another good place was Selsea Bill, more eastward still.

While the Captain was giving this little lecture about the crabs and their congeners, Rover was prancing around and barking for some one to pitch in a stick or something for him to fetch out of the sea.

Presently, in bringing back a piece of wood which Bob had thrown into the water, Rover dragged ash.o.r.e a ma.s.s of seaweed, a portion of which was shaped somewhat like a lettuce and coloured a greenish purple.

The Captain pounced on this at once.

"Hullo!" he exclaimed--"why, it is laver."

"Isn't that good to eat?" asked Mrs Gilmour. "I fancy I've heard people speak of it in London, or somewhere."

"I should rather think it was!" he replied. "It is, too, one of the best sorts, the purple laver, a variety of some value, I believe, in the London market."

"I can't say I should like to eat it," said Nellie, squeezing up her nose like a rabbit and making a wry face. "It looks too nasty!"

"Wouldn't you?" retorted the Captain. "I can tell you, missy, it is very good when well boiled, with the addition of a little lemon-juice.

It tastes then better than spinach."

"Do all these sorts of seaweed grow in the sea, Captain Dresser?" asked Bob. "I mean in the same way as plants do in a garden?"

"No, my boy," replied the other. "They attach themselves to the rocks at the bottom of the sea, not to draw their sustenance from them in the same way as plants ash.o.r.e derive their nourishment from the earth through their roots; but, simply to anchor themselves in a secure haven out of reach of the waves, getting all their nutriment from the water, which is the atmosphere of the sea in the same way as air is that of the land. Of course, some of these weeds of the ocean drift from their moorings, like that bladder wrack there with the berries."

"Don't they pop jolly!" observed Master Bob, popping away as he delivered himself of this opinion. "Pop! There goes one!"

"You are not the only boy who has found that out, or girl either," said the Captain with a smile to Nellie, who was industriously following her brother's example. "But, look here, children, I can now see something stranger than anything we've noticed yet."

"What?" exclaimed Bob and Nellie together, stooping down to where the Captain was poking about with the end of his malacca cane in the sandy shingle. "What is it, sir?"

"A pholas," he answered. "It is one of the most curious burrowing animals known, and has been a puzzle to naturalists for years, until Gosse discovered its secret, as to how it succeeded with its soft and tender sh.e.l.l in penetrating into the hardest rocks, within whose substance it is frequently found completely buried, so that, like the 'Fly in Amber,' one wonders how it ever got there!"

"What did you say it was?" asked Mrs Gilmour. "A 'fowl,' sure? Faith it's a quare-looken' bird, Cap'en dear!"

The Captain smiled, but he was not to be tempted away from his hobby.

"The pholas, I said, ma'am," he replied. "The 'pholas dactylus,' as scientific people call it, which, until Gosse, as I said, discovered its mode of action, was quite a puzzle to every one; although, now that the mystery is out, all wonder it was not cleared up before! If you look at the head of the sh.e.l.l, you'll see it is provided with a regular series of little pointed spines at the end of the upper portion. These spines are of a much harder material than the main part of the sh.e.l.l, and are fixed into it, as you could notice better with a microscope, just in the same way as the steel points for the notes of any air are attached to the barrel of a common musical-box, projecting like so many teeth."

"Yes, I can see them," observed Bob, who was listening attentively.

"Look, Nell!"

"Well, then," the Captain went on, "besides this toothed head of his, the animal is provided with a sucker at his mouth, by which he can hold on to any wooden pile or stonework he may wish to perforate so as to make his nest inside; and, gripping this firmly with his sucker and working the head of his sh.e.l.l slowly backwards and forwards with a sort of circular rocking motion, he gradually bores his way into the object of his affections, getting rid of the refuse he excavates by the aid of a natural siphon that runs through his body, and by means of which he blows all his waste borings away--curious, isn't it?"

"Very," said Mrs Gilmour; while the children, equally interested, wanted to learn not only all the Captain could tell them of this peculiar little animal, but also everything he knew of the other wonders of the sh.o.r.e. "Sure I wish I knew all you do, Captain!"

But, if the Captain was learned and good-natured, the children taxed his patience, Miss Nellie especially.

She had not lost any time in setting about making that collection of sh.e.l.ls which she had mentioned to him in confidence when coming down in the train it was her intention to begin as soon as she got to the sea; and, all the time he had been speaking of the little crabs and other things, she had been busily gathering together all sorts of razor sh.e.l.ls, pieces of cuttle-fish bone, cast-off lobsters' claws, and bits of seaweed, which she now proudly drew his attention to, expecting the old sailor's admiration.

He was, on the contrary, however, extremely ungallant.

"All rubbish!" he exclaimed on her asking him if he did not think her pile of curiosities nice. "But, those corallines, young lady, are good.

They were long supposed to belong to the animal world, like the zoophytes; instead of which they are plants the same as any other seaweed. When that little branch you have there is dry, if you put the end of it to a lighted candle, it will burn with an intense white flame, similar to the lime-light, or that produced by electricity."

"We'll try it to-night!" said Bob emphatically. "We'll try it to- night!"

"But, the Captain says it must be quite dry," interposed his sister, somewhat appeased by the praise bestowed on her corallines for the wholesale condemnation her collection had received. "Isn't that so, Captain?"

"Right you are, my deary," said he. "They would not burn unless they're just like tinder."

d.i.c.k, who had meanwhile been listening to all that was being said, without intruding on the conversation, busying himself in picking up sh.e.l.ls for Miss Nell, and, occasionally, diverting Rover's attention by throwing a stick for him into the sea, happened to come across, just at this juncture, a queer-looking dark-coloured object that resembled an india-rubber tobacco-pouch more than anything else.

"What be this, sir?" said he, holding up the article for inspection.

"Be he good for aught, sir?"

"Why, it's only a piece of seaweed, of course!" declared Master Bob, settling the question in his own way. "Any one can see that."

"You're wrong," said the Captain. "You're quite wrong, Master Sharp!"

"It's a fairy's pillow-case," cried Nellie. "Isn't it?"

"Your guess is the nearer of the two, missy," decided Captain Dresser, thumping his malacca cane down to give greater effect to his words.