DISAPPEARANCE OF THE LONG-LEAF PINE. 221 



mischief. Like some radical politicians, his propensities are subterranean ; nor 

 does the resemblance stop there ; for both, when they get to the bottom of the 

 best things, are very apt to upturn and destroy them. In one case, at least, the 

 best remedy is, a ring in the nose. 



Let not the reader smile in derision at the idea of forests of trees being de- 

 stroyed by hogs. How much more numerous would be the growth of the oak, 

 and the chestnut, and the beech, and the hickory, were it not for him and an 

 ally, his aniipode in taste and habits, the agile, cleanly and beautiful squirrel, 

 destroying the nuts and acorns ! But there are, Mr. Editor, many things in na- 

 ture that "are not dreamed of in our philosophy." One must travel, if he would 

 pick up information, and lay prejudice down in its place. On this subject 

 of devouring the germs of trees and forests, what, gentle reader, would you think 

 were I to tell you that on the Keeling or Cocos Islands, situated in the Indian 

 Ocean, immense numbers of cocoa-nuts are destroyed by — crabs! On Keeling 

 Island the pig, at once prolific and omnivorous, is the only domestic animal, and 

 the main vegetable production is the cocoa-nut tree. On this tree the whole 

 prosperity of the place depends. The hogs, " loaded with fat," almost entirely 

 subsist on its nut, as do the ducks and poultry. "Even a huge land crab is fur- 

 nished by Mature," says Darwin, " with the means to open and feed on this most 

 useful production. The front pair of legs terminate in very strong and heavy pin- 

 cers, and the last pair are fitted with others weaker and much narrower. It would 

 at first be thought quite impossible for a crab to open a strong cocoa-nut, covered 

 with the husk, but Mr. Liesk assures me that he has repeatedly seen this effected. 

 The crab begins by tearing the husk, fibre by fibre, and always from that end un- 

 der which the three eye-holes are situated ; when this is completed the crab com- 

 mences hammering with its heavy claws on one of the eye-holes till an opening 

 is made. Then turning round its body, by the aid of its posterior and narrow 

 pair of pincers it extracts the white albuminous substance. I think this is as 

 curious a case of instinct as ever I heard of, and likewise of adaptation in struc- 

 ture between two objects apparently so remote from each other in the scheme of 

 Mature as a crab and a cocoa-nut tree ! " 



But if Nature has provided for all her living creations external enemies or m- 

 ternal seeds of destruction, is she not equally lavish in the means of distributing 

 all organized beings over the face of the earth ? — some carried by migrating 

 birds, and others wafted by the ocean, without losing their power of germination, 

 for thousands of miles ! How boundless is the field she spreads before us for study 

 and amusement ! How innumerable the objects to excite our admiration of the 

 great Artificer of all ! 



In regard to the progress of destruction, even to extinction, of some races 

 of animals, and even of men, there is this reflection to be made, disparaging 

 to the character and humiliating to our pride: that while other animals make 

 war against each other, not in mere wantonness, but to satisfy hunger and sus- 

 tain existence, it is not their own kind that they devour. It is only as a figure of 

 speech, and to describe and denounce some horrible and loathsome action, that 

 we say it was "dog eat dog" between them. But man's ingenuity, from the 

 earliest annals, has been stretched to its utmost in devising infernal machines 

 for the destruction of each other ; and, alas ! as if to put the seal of shame, not on 

 man alone, but on the cause of civilization itself, the whitest and the most civil- 

 ized, those on whom the God of all has shed in greatest profusion the light of 

 science and the benign precepts of Christianity, have been the most distinguished 

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