Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1908 — THE SCALE TAILED CRAB. [ARTICLE]

THE SCALE TAILED CRAB.

Naturalist Schaeffer Once Counted T hem, and Found 1,802,604. The crab known as the scale-tailed apus „as believed to have become extinct in Great Britain fifty years ago, the last recorded specimens being taken in the ponds on Hampstead Heath. But now it has turned up again in some numbers in two ponds on Preston Merse, near South wick, in Kirkcudbrightshire. About two anu a half inches long, the apus bears a very striking likeness to that remarkable creature the king crab, and this because the fore part of the body is covered by a great semicircular shield or carapace, while as in the king crub, it swims on its back. In the great number of Its legs the Scale, tailed apus has few rivals, while in the number of the joints which these share between them no other creature can compare. The naturalist Schaeffer once essayed the task of counting them and made the magnificent total of 1,802,604. Latreille pnt down the number at a round 2,000,000.