REMARKABLE BEHAVIOUR 81 
was the case at St. Croix, but since the cutting down of 
the forests and destruction of thousands of the crabs, their 
number has diminished. They generally take up their 
abode on the hills, not less than one mile nor more than 
three miles from the coast. It is in the morning and 
evening that they are to be found in greatest numbers 
under the trees. Go away then without a stick in hand, 
and they will approach with uplifted claws asif threatening 
an assault. But if they are themselves assailed with a 
stick or a switch, they retreat, yet still facing the foe, and 
ever and anon clashing their claws together to strike terror 
into him. Thus they withdraw to their holes in the rock 
or the rotten tree or deep burrows in the ground. They are 
capital eating, and are one of the principal food resources of 
the natives, who improve the flavour by fattening them up 
for three or four days in a potato field. But a warning is 
given that they do not always suit the stomach of Kuro- 
peans, since they are apt to produce cold hypochondriac 
humours, whereby some explain the slow melancholy nature 
of the Caribbee islanders. When seized bya leg or a claw 
these crabs relinquish it so readily as to produce the im- 
pression that their limbs are only stuck on. ‘The lost 
appendage would be renewed at the next change of skin, 
but it often happens that the sacrifice which has saved the 
crab from its human foes exposes it as a defenceless victim 
to those of its own race. 
The pairing season is said to be in March and April. 
In May, the rainy period, they march in great hosts towards 
the sea, to bathe and lay their eggs in it. ‘Then all roads 
and brooks are filled with them, and it is indeed a very 
wonderful instinct, which the Creator has given them, to go 
direct to that part of the island where there are stretches of 
sand and slopes from which they can most easily arrive at 
the sea. Nothing can hinder them from going the straight 
road towards the sea, for they go over everything that 
comes in their way, be it hedges, houses, churches, hills or 
cliffs, straight over everything they go, and rather clamber 
up at the peril of their lives, than make a circuit. In the 
night, for example, they will creep in at a window, and 
