L774: CRUSTACEA—-EUCARIDA—DECAPODA CHAP. 
grow. It feeds on the pulp of the cocoa-nut, which it extracts 
by hammering with its heavy chela on the “ eye-hole ” until room 
is made for the small chela to enter and extract the pulp. 
There is not the shghtest doubt that the animal often ascends 
the cocoa-nut trees for the purpose of picking the nuts, a fact 
illustrated by a fine photograph by Dr. Andrews, exhibited in the 
Crustacean Gallery in the Natural History Departments of the 
British Museum. It uses the husk of the nut to line its 
burrow, and it is said to have the habit of putting its abdomen 
into the nut-shell for protection and carrying it about with it. 
Owing to its terrestrial mode of life, the branchial chamber is 
highly modified, being divided into two portions—a dorsal space, 
the lining of which is thrown into vascular ridges and folds for 
aerial respiration, and a lower portion where the rudimentary 
branchiae are situated. Although the Robber-crab lives ordinarily 
on land, it must be supposed that these branchiae are of some 
service; the young are hatched out as ordinary Zoaeas in the 
sea, and go through a pelagic existence before seeking the 
land. At the present time the Robber-crab is confined to the 
Pacific and the islands of the Indian Ocean, wherever the cocoa- 
nut grows. It seems, however, that its association with the 
cocoa-nut is a comparatively modern one. Mr. C. Hedley, of 
Sydney, who has had great experience of the Pacific Islands, 
informs me that the cocoa-nut is not, as is usually supposed, a 
native of these coral islands, but has been introduced, probably 
from Mexico, by the Polynesian mariners before the discovery of 
America by Columbus. Before the introduction of the cocoa- 
nut the Robber-crab must have fed on some other tree, possibly 
the Serew Pine, Pandanus. 
The abdomen is full of oil, and is much prized as a delicacy 
by the natives, who tell many strange legends about the 
creature, but the philosopher may well find its structure more 
strange than fiction, and the consideration of its morphology an 
intellectual feast. 
The appearance of the thorax and of the thoracic limbs is 
thoroughly Pagurid; the structure of the abdomen is highly 
peculiar. 
From the ventral surface (Fig. 119) we can see at the tip of 
the tail three small calcified plates, which represent the fifth and 
sixth terga and the telson. Attached to the sixth segment are 
