One method of catching crabs is to use a wire basket with a single hole on top. Bait is secured inside the basket which the crabber then lowers into the water. Slowly at first, a crab comes along, enters the trap and begins eating the bait. Then others follow and join the feast. If the crabber has selected a good spot, the basket soon is filled with crabs and remains so even after all the bait has been devoured. At this point, the crabs are free to leave the basket through the hole they came in. But they do not. Instead, they keep each other trapped in the cage. If one of them tries to leave through the hole, the others immediately gang up on it and even fight to the death to prevent its liberation.
And so the crabs remain together in this condition until they are hoisted out of the water – – victims of an almost humanlike tendency to exercise the…
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