held by tlie nijipers of the fresh inhabitant until enabled 

 to obtain a firm hold just outside the portal, where it 

 remains until some other removal is made, or more 

 commodious quarters required. From these sociable 

 house-hunting adventurers we pass on to the burrowing 

 Crabs, of which there are many kinds, indulging in 

 habits most curious and noteworthy. Perhaps the 

 most remarkable of these, is the great Cocoa-nut 

 Eating Crab, or " Ou-Ou,'' as it is called by the natives 

 of some of the localities in which it is met with. It 

 is the Birgus latro of naturalists, and is well repre- 

 sented, although on a very reduced scale in the illus- 

 tration next page. It is found in many of the Coral 

 Islands dotting the Indian seas and Pacific ocean, and 

 beneath the rustling, waving, cocoa-nut groves, which 

 abound within the torid zone. The Ou-Ou forms for him- 

 self a home, delving and burrowing, miner-like, beneath 

 the wide-spreading roots of the tropic trees, and excavat- 

 ing deep and cunningly-formed galleries and chambers 

 in the coral sand and broken shells ; and one is almost 

 disposed to think that the following lines by Thom- 

 son must have been penned in all the fervour of a 

 poet's admiration for the happy lot of our friend of 

 subterranean proclivities : — 



*' Sheltered amid the orchards of the sun, 

 "Where high palmettos lift their graceful shade, 

 Give me to drain the cocoa's mdky bowl, 



