232 I N A G U A 



There, I knew, though I could not see it, for this is the way 

 of these crabs, a wonderful thing would happen. In the cool 

 depths, in the shelter of some dark crevice safe from hungry 

 fishes the weary mother would shake off her burden of purple 

 eggs. Just below the area of the surf where the bubbles 

 churned the water into silvery spray the eggs would hatch, 

 casting forth their spawn. And the female, exhausted by her 

 long journey, by the vicissitudes of her life on dry land, would 

 try to struggle back to the interior again. Some succeed to 

 live a short while before they leave their whitened bodies in 

 the rocks to bleach in the sun; others fall easy prey to ravenous 

 carnivores, perishing before they are out of the surf; but it 

 does not matter, for their hour of labor is finished, their destiny 

 fulfilled. And I also knew that if the life history follows the 

 pattern of most other crabs in a few hours or days the sea 

 near shore would be afloat with vast swarms of micro-crea- 

 tures, the spawn from the purple-colored eggs— queer, gargoyl- 

 ish, outlandish looking spawn that in no way could be con- 

 ceived to be crabs. 



Scientists call these spawn zoea, which is a word meaning 

 life. Smaller than the head of the smallest pin these transparent 

 apparitions float through the water, looking like Martian mos- 

 quitoes, unbelievable creatures invisible save under a strong 

 lens. For days their function would be little more than to drift, 

 kicking vigorously with feather-like legs, peering into the 

 water with big black eyes, seeking the light, and devouring 

 everything that came within reach. Hundreds would disap- 

 pear down the craws of other creatures, larger than themselves 

 and equally voracious. Some would perish in the folds of the 

 stinging tentacles of the coral polyps; other hundreds would 

 be cast ashore to desiccate miserably on the dry sand; still 

 others would be carried out to sea and would be lost. But in 

 the end there would still remain many thousands to moult 



