The New Jersey Shoreline

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Late one afternoon, as the spawning crabs are returning to the water, Zack Gandy and a redheaded pal pace the beach, looking for late departers. Zack, a ten-year-old imp with a Mohawk haircut, sits in the sand poking at a live crab with a stick. "I like watching how they mate," he says, launching into a kid's version of the birds and the bees on the beach. "He climbs up on her back, holds on to her tail, puts his claws under her shell and just mates. That's all I know."

Sometimes the boys intervene. They comb the beach looking for a female, and once they find one, they pull an unattached male from the water and place him atop the female. Explains Zack: "If he goes off, just push him back on and say, 'Mate!' Then they'll do it." Easy -- but then it should be, after 200 million years.