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them live in one place near here that we call it Crabville. I think you will enjoy

seeing these little creatures in their native haunts."

They now approached a kelp bed, the straight, thin stems of the kelp running far

upward to the surface of the water. Here and there upon the stalks were leaves,

but Trot thought the growing kelp looked much like sticks of macaroni, except

they were a rich red-brown color. It was beyond the kelp--which they had to push

aside as they swam through, so thickly did it grow--that they came to a higher

level, a sort of plateau on the ocean's bottom. It was covered with scattered rocks

of all sizes, which appeared to have broken off from big shelving rocks they

observed nearby. The place they entered seemed like one of the rocky canyons

you often see upon the earth.

Here live the fiddler crabs," said Merla, "but we must have taken them by

surprise, it is so quiet."

Even as she spoke, there was a stirring and scrambling among the rocks, and

soon scores of light-green crabs were gathered before the visitors. The crabs bore

fiddles of all sorts and shapes in their claws, and one big fellow carried a leader's

baton. The latter crab climbed upon a flat rock and in an excited voice called out,

"Ready, now--ready, good fiddlers. We'll play Number 19, Hail to the Mermaids.

Ready! Take aim! Fire away!"

At this command every crab began scraping at his fiddle as hard as he could, and

the sounds were so shrill and unmusical that Trot wondered when they would

begin to play a tune. But they never did; it was one regular mix-up of sounds

from beginning to end. When the noise finally stopped, the leader turned to his

visitors and, waving his baton toward them, asked, "Well, what did you think of

that?"

"Not much," said Trot honestly. "What's it all about?"

I composed it myself!" said the Fiddler Crab. "But it's highly classical, I admit. All

really great music is an acquired taste."

"I don't like it," remarked Cap'n Bill. "It might do all right to stir up a racket New

Year's Eve, but to call that screechin' music--"

Just then the crabs started fiddling again, harder than ever, and as it promised to

be a long performance, they left the little creatures scraping away at their fiddles

as if for dear life and swam along the rocky canyon until, on turning a corner,

they came upon a new and different scene.

The Sea Fairies