How do you know which is the Black-headed Gull in the summer months?
2. Why is it difficult to see the Ringed Plover on the stones of the
shore?
3. Where would you look for the eggs of the Ringed Plover and of the
Black-headed Gull?
4. Why have marsh birds such long beaks?
LESSON IV.
CRABS.
Little Crabs are to be found everywhere along the sea-shore--not the
monsters of the fishmonger's shop, but small greenish-brownish Crabs.
They live in the weed of the rock-pools, and in the wet sand. These are
the Shore Crabs; the large Edible Crabs are a different kind, and live
mostly in deep water.
Shore Crabs are quarrelsome little creatures; the larger ones are always
ready to gobble up the smaller ones, or to snatch their food and run
away with it. If you put some dead mussels or fish in a pool, you will
be amused at their antics. How they scramble and fight! Crabs do not
believe in "table manners."
[Illustration: THE REDSHANK.]
[Illustration: THE CRAB.]
It is their taste for waste scraps of food that makes crabs of use in
the sea. They are most useful scavengers.
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