"And he just pulls them up with a rake?"
"Yep," was the reply; "big rake with curved tines to it. You see he jerks his rake along until he feels it full, then pulls it up. Now, this feller,
over on the other side here, he's not goin' after clams at all. He's oysterin'. Ef you'll notice, he has two poles an' he works 'em apart an' together again like a pair o' shears, an' then when he feels he has a load, he hauls it up the same way, picks out the oysters that are big enough, an' throws the small ones back together with the stones an' other rubbish that he has brought up. They call that 'tonging' oysters, an' the thing he uses is called the 'tongs.'"
"I've been wondering," said Colin, as they passed over the bay and he noted again all the lobster-pot buoys which had interested him so greatly on the way to New Bedford, "I've been wondering whether there was any crabbing done up this way?"
"Not much," the captain answered; "there's one caught now an' again, but all the good eatin' crabs belong further south. New Jersey's the place f'r crabs, an' I reckon most o' the soft-shell crabs o' the country come from there, but the business o' cannin' crabs is done way down in Chesapeake Bay, where there's crabs no end."
"A soft-shell crab is just the same species as the regular blue crab, isn't it," asked the boy; "only it has cast its shell?"
"Jus' the same," was the reply, "but for the market, an' there it's worth four or five times as much."
"When you come to think of it," said Colin, "there isn't much in the sea that isn't fit for food. Even the swordfish is good eating."
"There's some poisonous fish down in the tropics," was the reply, "but I reckon that but for a few of those, a hungry man could eat nigh anythin' that came out o' the water, fish or shellfish or anythin'. An' you know," he added, "some folks, like the Japanese an' South Sea Islanders, prefer 'em raw."