Chap, iii.] FISHING OFF THE ROCKS. 6l 



bait, cut with some care and difficulty from a fish sacrificed for 

 the purpose. You are absorbed in the sport. A fish carries 

 off your bait ; you look down and see two crabs just disappear- 

 ing into an impracticable crevice, carrying your choice morsel 

 between them. You catch a fish and throw it down beside 

 you. Before long you find a swarm of crabs round it, tearing 

 morsels off the gills, using both claws alternately to carry them 

 to their mouths ; and a big old crab digging away at the skin 

 of the fish, and trying to bite through it. 



If a bird dies the crabs soon pick its bones, and I saw one 

 old crab profiting by our having driven off all the old birds, 

 and carrying off a young bird just hatched. The older crabs 

 are richly coloured, with bright red legs. The crabs have odd 

 ways, and curious habits of expressing anger, astonishment, 

 suspicion, and fear, by the attitude of their claws. When two 

 old crabs meet unsuspectingly in a crevice they dodge one 

 another in an amusing way, and drawing their legs together 

 strut on tiptoe. 



In the tropics one becomes accustomed to watch the habits 

 of various species of crabs, which there live so commonly an 

 aerial life. The more I have seen of them the more I have 

 been astonished at their sagacity. I had, I do not know why, 

 always considered them as of low intelligence. 



Admiral Fitzroy gives an account of the large numbers of 

 fish caught off the rocks by his men, and states that they 

 hauled the fish up from the bottom with difficulty because they 

 were always rushed at by voracious sharks. 



In the evening volunteers for fishing were called for, and I 

 went in the jolly-boat with about six officers and four or five 

 men. A cutter full of men also put off. We made fast to the 

 line across the bay, and for a long time got nothing, till at last, 

 when we were getting tired, one man caught a shark, about 

 three feet long, and we all got good bait from him. 



Then we caught more sharks, and it was at last discovered 

 that we ought to have been fishing at the surface, and not at 

 the bottom. A^ soon as we took the sinkers off our lines and 

 allowed the baits to float we began to haul in large fish, some 

 of them 20 lbs. in weight, as fast as possible. The fish were 

 "Cavalli" (= seahorse.?) — a species of Cara?ix, which is allied 

 to our mackerel, and very good to eat. 



The fish were very game, and pulled hard, making phospho- \ ,4- 



rescent flashes as they dashed about in the water under the boat, 

 it being now dark. Every now and then some one hooked a 

 shark {Carcharias sp), and then there was a tremendous fight, 

 and all the lines in the boat were tangled and fouled as the big 

 fish rushed around. At last it either broke the line, or was 



