158 A HISTORY OF RECENT CRUSTACEA 



down a nut, descends to strip it of its husk, and then * re- 

 ascends the tree, if the situation is favourable, and holding 

 the nut by a bit of the fibre, which it leaves on for the 

 purpose, it lets it fall upon a rock, or stone, and thus 

 breaks it.' I could wish that he had spoken of having 

 seen this wonderful manoeuvring with his own eyes. Dr. 

 T. H. Streets declares that ' the wonderful stories about 

 these crabs climbing the trees after cocoa-nuts are purely 

 fictitious.' 



Rumphius is the original authority for the statement 

 that these crustaceans in their night ramblings ascend the 

 cocoa-nut palms and appropriate the nuts. It is to their 

 love of that food that they owe the title of the robber-crab. 

 It is said that tliey can be lured out of their holes by pre- 

 senting to them a cocoa-nut attached to the end of a stick. 

 Rumphius says that this crab in the language of Amboina 

 is named Catattut and Atattut, but that it is familiarly 

 called by his own countrymen ' Don Diego in 't voile har- 

 nasch,' its Latin name being Cancer crumenatus, of which 

 the Belgic equivalent is Beurs-Krabbe. This title of purse- 

 crab alludes to the packet of fat under the tail, which is 

 accounted a delicious marrow-like morsel by those who 

 like it. The oil from it is, or once was, regarded as a 

 panacea for sprains and contusions. Herbst declares that 

 the claws of the Birgus are so strong that they easily crack 

 a cocoa-nut which a human being could not break open 

 with a stone. He sa3^s, moreover, that if they have once 

 seized hold of an object, it is easier to break the claws than 

 to make them let go. Yet what cannot be done by force 

 may be achieved by cunning, for if, he says, you just tickle 

 the creature under the tail, it becomes so irritated that it 

 gives itself a nip on the tail, and dies by its own claw ! 

 Herbst wrongly figures the fourth pair of legs as simple, 

 whereas they are, in fact, chelate. The naturalists of the 

 Challenger were informed by an intelligent native at Sam- 

 boangan that the female crab carries about large masses of 

 the eggs with it in the month of May, and retains them so 

 attached until the young are developed just like the parent. 

 At Samboangan it is called ' Tatos,' and appreciated p.s 



