e 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.

There were crabs here, too, many of them, and they were performing
the queerest antics imaginable. Some were building themselves into a
pyramid, each standing on edge, with the biggest and strongest ones
at the bottom. When the crabs were five or six rows high, they would
all tumble over, still clinging to one another and, ha