468 NATURAL HISTORY OF HAWAII. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



PLANTS AND ANDIALS FROil THE CORAL REEFS : PART ONE. 



Of the many groups of animals living- on or about our tropic shores, the 

 fishes and mollusks have received attention in other chapters. There remains 

 for consideration some of the more common and striking of the many varied 

 forms of plant and animal life that are sure to awaken the interest of any one 

 who visits the shore or, better still, is so fortimate as to spend even a few 

 hours wading- in the shallow water that covers the fascinating- coral reefs. 



The Common Crabs. 



Of the various orders of the larger animals yet to be considered, the crabs 

 and their marine relatives are perhaps the most consjjicuous and at the same 

 time the most onniipresent. Some one of tlie tribe inhabits almost every rod of 

 the sand beach and almost every loose stone along the shore furnishes a shelter 

 for one or more of these active, interesting, curious creatures. 



Nearly every child is familiar with some of the more common shore forms 

 and perhaps can call them by their native names and tell something of their 

 many peculiar habits. But few, indeed, even of those who are skilled in such 

 matters, can name the rarer of the odd forms of crab-like animals that inhabit 

 the ocean and are liable to lie captiu-ed by almost anyone who will take the 

 trouble to turn over a stone, stir up the sand and mud, or break up the masses 

 of living and dead coral along the shore. 



As the number of marine species belonging to this huge class far exceeds 

 any other group of marine animals, we can do little more than point out the 

 main charactei'isties of the class by calling attention to a few of the common 

 forms. The body of an animal of this class is typically made up of a number 

 of hard plates or rings variously ai'ranged, but always forming an outer hard 

 or thickened shell or skeleton. The skeleton plates are usually so arranged 

 as to divide the animal into a variable number of segments. Each segment 

 ordinarily bears paired, jointed legs or swimming organs. 



The wide variation in form and plan among these creatures can be gath- 

 ered from the examination of such animals as crabs, crawfish, pra-wns, shrimps, 

 mantis shrimps, sand-hoppers, fish-lice, whale-lice, acorn and stalked barnacles, 

 and a long- list of less known denizens of the deep, all of which belong to this 

 grand division of the animal kingdom of which the lobster is taken as the typical 

 form. 



The Lobster. 



The so-called Hawaiian lobster,- the ula of the native fishermen, is the 

 large species of marine crawfish so abundant in the Hawaiian market. Those 

 familiar with the large pincer-clawed American lobster^ will appreciate at 

 once that the local species is quite a different creature. By zoologists the 



