CRABS — LOBSTERS. 255 
erabs, bears a great resemblance to the paguri. It is said to 
climb the palm-trees, for the sake of detaching the heavy nuts; 
but Mr. Darwin, who attentively observed the animal on the 
Keeling Islands, tells us that it merely lives upon those that 
spontaneously fall from the tree. To extract its nourishment 
from the hard case, it shows an ingenuity which is one of the 
most wonderful instances of animal instinct. It must first of 
all be remarked, that its front pair of legs is terminated by very 
strong and heavy pincers, the last pair by others, narrow and 
weak. After having selected a nut fit for its dinner, the erah 
begins its operations by tearing the husk, fibre by fibre, from 
that end under which the three eye-holes are situated; it then 
hammers upon one of them with its heavy claws, until an opening 
is made. Hereupon it turns round, and by the aid of its pos- 
terior pincers, extracts the white albuminous substance. It 
inhabits deep burrows, where it accumulates surprising quanti- 
ties of picked fibres of cocoa-nut husks, on which it rests as on 
a bed. Its habits are diurnal; but every night it is said to pay 
a visit to the sea, no doubt for the purpose of moistening its 
branchiz. It is very good to eat, living as it does on choice 
vegetable substances; and the great mass of fat, accumulated 
under the tail of the larger ones, sometimes yields, when melted, 
as much as a quart of limpid oil. Thus our taking possession of 
the Keeling Islands, as a coaling station for the steamers from 
Australia to Ceylon, bodes no good to the Birgus. 
The long tail, which the paguri sedulously conceal in shells, 
serves the shrimps and lobsters as their chief organ of locomo- 
tion, for although these creatures have well-formed legs, they 
make but slow work of it when they attempt to crawl. But 
nothing can equal the rapidity with which they dart backwards 
through the water, by suddenly contracting their tail. Thus 
the Lobster makes leaps of twenty feet at one single bound, and 
the little shrimp equals it fully in velocity in proportion to its size, 
and belongs unquestionably to the most active of the denizens of 
the ocean. It swarms in incalculable numbers on the sandy 
shores of the North Sea, where it is caught in nets attached to a 
long cross pole, which the fishermen, walking-knee deep in the 
water, push along before them. Boiled shrimps are a well 
known delicacy; and the Squilla Mantis of the Mediterranean, 
which resembles our common shrimp in outer form, but essen- 
