244 TROPIC DAYS 



fascinated by the appearance of the other. Thus would 

 they squat for several minutes, contemplating each 

 other's proportions and perfections. Then both would 

 leap high with mouths agape, and that which timed the 

 feat to the best advantage, or had the widest gape, 

 seized the less fortunate, and slowly and with much 

 straining and little apparent joy swallowed it. Often 

 the rivals would not meet in mid air, and the lapse 

 provided the delusion of innocent play. There were 

 hundreds of examples of absorption of the least fit 

 by the fittest to survive, and the chronicling of the 

 cannibal feast would be incomplete if a singular detail 

 were unrelated. The participators seemed of like size. 

 Complexion alone varied and foppish discrimination 

 was exercised, for since dog does not in a general way 

 eat dog, greys did not eat grej's or greens greens. 

 With unswerving decision, greys swallowed greens and 

 greens greys, and extreme corpulency was the inevitable 

 result. Does this not smack of the snake story? It 

 certainl}' does, but it has the virtue of being unexag- 

 geratcd, and why shrink from the telling of the plain 

 truth ? 



An unwitnessed tragedy may be told in a very few 

 words. About twenty-five feet above high- water mark 

 was the shaft of a white sand-crab. The site was not 

 common, for the crabs are in the habit of burrowing 

 well within the range of the tide. For two or three days 

 — for the spot was at the back of the boat-shed and under 

 daily observation — the alert creature was oft disturbed 

 by my coming and going. One morning it remained 

 motionless on the verge of its retreat. It seemed to 

 be on guard, and as a companionable feeling had been 

 aroused, I was careful as I passed not to unduly affright 

 it. The statuesque position being abnormally retained, 

 I stooped down, to find the crab dead, with the froth 



