Chapter 2 horseshoe crab

One day when I was going from Jimei to Xiamen, when I was about to berth on a barge, a colleague who was with me suddenly pointed me to horseshoe crabs, and then told me about this animal. Eat soup, taste very fresh.At the end, he said again: "This kind of thing is a bit strange. It is always connected in two, with the male on top of the female; when a fisherman goes fishing, he must catch the female below. They just follow, they won't run away, they seem to be reluctant to part with the female, but if they catch the male above, the female will slip away!" I hurried to the bow of the boat to check, and sure enough, they were all right. The color was like that of a soft-shelled turtle, and the shape was a bit similar, but it was bigger. The back shell was divided into two parts. The tail was long and hard, and the head and feet could not be seen. Because the couples were tied by straw ropes, and the boats were already moored, they were so crowded that they couldn't see clearly.

Coincidentally, after going ashore, I ran into a countryman on Zhongshan Road, who was selling small horseshoe crabs with a load.I can't speak Xiamen dialect well, so I followed other people to pay for it. Four copper coins got six of them.It can swim in the water, crawl on the table, and move its tail up and down. It is a bit like a little turtle, but it does not show its head and feet. In fact, it has no obvious head at all.It's still too small to see clearly.After two days in a bowl with fresh water, one died; after that, one died every one or two days; the larger one lived for twelve days.

A few days later, I went to Xiamen University to visit the biological exhibition, and Mr. Mengfang received him warmly. After the visit, I rested in the reception room together. I saw a large specimen of horseshoe crab hanging on the wall, so I asked to take it down for observation. Only then did I understand: it turns out that the mouth grows in the middle of the abdomen, stretching out from the mouth, with six pairs of feet, which can be bent and stretched. The feet are pincer-shaped, as if they belonged to shrimps, but they grow bigger.The sixth pair of feet is longer, and the end is split into five, one of which is particularly long, and the other is shaped like a pincer.

According to Mr. Fang's explanation, this is classified as spiders; the meat used to make soup is the tail, which is attached to the swimmer. Fang Jun also said that this is a kind of animal that dies for love.But the so-called martyrdom is just the male horseshoe crab to the female horseshoe crab—if the male is caught, the female will have to escape by herself. Is it also martyrdom? The male horseshoe crab is so affectionate, but the female horseshoe crab seems to be fickle; it seems that the male horseshoe crab is infatuated by dying to the object of such fickle affection. But I don't think I should make such an assertion casually; although I haven't done systematic and long-term research on horseshoe crabs, the relationship between sex and life in animals is really complicated and varied: for example, in bees and ants, the females are both The lifespan of the male is longer than that of the male, in order to complete the mission of reproduction; and like a moth, the male does not eat after mating and dies soon, while the female dies only after laying eggs.If it is the same as that of moths, then the male horseshoe crab has mated, and its life is about to end anyway, so of course there is no need to escape.

Coexistence and death, why not do it?The female has to give birth, so she wants to give birth; with such a "husband" who is so affectionate, she is willing to live and die together; bear the heart to say goodbye, linger on, in order to "pass on to the next generation", due to the last resort, the "thin love" of the female horseshoe crab, Or the greatness of motherhood! It is said that horseshoe crabs usually live in the sea and are not easy to catch; they only come to the beach in spring for the purpose of giving birth; it can be seen that the so-called sacrifice for love is basically for breeding seeds.It's just that human beings, no matter whether they are sacrificed for love or race, are always available to be caught and eaten, and even the small ones are collected for teasing.

Originally published in "Taibai", Volume 2, Issue 9, July 20, 1935