IV 



Calling-Crabs 6y 



run up the aerial roots of the neighbouring man- 

 groves and down the other side into the water with 

 a splash. The whole scene is one of the funniest 

 imaginable. There is a grave solemnity in the 

 motions of these crabs, each one seated at the mouth 

 of his own burrow, clicking loudly (how, I cannot 

 make out, but not, I think, with his big claw), which 

 would put to shame the gravest Rabbi offering a 

 Wave Offering, or a toast-master leading off the cheers 

 for Her Majesty at a solemn dinner ; then this fish, 

 so utterly fresh and strange, — in every appearance 

 and motion so unlike his camarade or chamber-fellow, 

 — pops up like the comic element in a play, and his 

 vivacity is as absurd as the solemnity of his friend. 



' This is a fine, bold, mountainous country, but it 

 wants water, and this, I fancy, will prevent it ever 

 becoming of any great value ; moreover, it is entirely 

 surrounded by coral reefs, through which you have to 

 enter by narrow passages, and the sea is so en- 

 cumbered with rocks and shoals as to render naviga- 

 tion exceedingly difficult. You need not fear for us ; 

 we never move except in the day-time, and then we 

 have a man at the mast-head : the water is so beauti- 

 fully clear that every rock and sandbank can be 

 seen easily.' ^ 



^ Long after his visit to Port St. Vincent he sent the following 

 letter to The Field on 



' Perambulating Fishes 



' In an angling note in The Field of 29th November, W. S. has asked 

 a question which I suspect he will find easily answered — if he confines 



