KEELING ISLAND. [CHAP. xx. 



or rounded, occasionally found embedded in fine sedimentary 

 masses. 



During another day I visited West Islet, on which the vegetation 

 was perhaps more luxuriant than on any other. The cocoa-nut 

 trees generally grow separate, but here the young ones flourished 

 beneath their tall parents, and formed with their long and curved 

 fronds the most shady arbours. Those alone who have tried it, 

 know how delicious it is to be seated in such shade, and drink the 

 cool pleasant fluid of the cocoa-nut. In this island there is a large 

 bay-like space, composed of the finest white sand : it is quite level 

 and is only covered by the tide at high water; from this large 

 bay smaller creeks penetrate the surrounding woods. To see a 

 field of glittering white sand, representing water, with the cocoa- 

 nut trees extending their tall and waving trunks round the margin, 

 formed a singular and very pretty view. 



I have before alluded to a crab which lives on the cocoa-nuts : 

 it is very common on all parts of the dry land, and grows to a 

 monstrous size : it is closely allied or identical with the Birgos 

 latro. The front pair of legs terminate in very strong and heavy 

 pincers, 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 busk; 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 iinder which the three eye-holes are situated; when this is 

 completed, the crab commences 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 structure between two objects apparently so remote 

 from each other in the scheme of nature, as a crab and a cocoa-nut 

 tree. The Birgos is diurnal in its habits; but every night it is 

 said to pay a visit to the sea, no doubt for the purpose of moistening 

 its branchise. The young are likewise hatched, and live for some 

 time, on the coast. These crabs inhabit deep burrows, which 

 they hollow out beneath the roots of trees; and where they 

 accumulate surprising quantities of the picked fibres of the cocoa- 

 nut husk, on which they rest as on a bed. The Malays sometimes 

 take advantage of this, and collect the fibrous mass to use as junk. 



