THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



are not spiders, but crabs. They run over the 

 sandy beach. Now one of them has seized a 

 cocoanut. What can he do with such an iron 

 armoured thing that defies the world ocean.? 

 Now intelHgent work begins. As a human hand 

 would peel an apple, so the great claws of the 

 crab systematically tear off the fiber covering. 

 Then these same heavy claws are used as ham- 

 mers. They pound on a very definite point on 

 the round nut, on one of the "eyes" through 

 which the germ bores. When the shell finally 

 gives way here, the crab turns around and, in- 

 serting one of the thinner rear claws in the open- 

 ing, joyfully extracts the white fruit -like flesh 

 of the nut piece by piece. The rising moon 

 lights up the scene. Cocoanut-eating crabs on 

 land! Crabs and water — how came these to be 

 separated at all? 



As with the plants, so also the animals are 

 drawn on and encouraged to a conquest of the 

 land. The crabs may have first learned to know 

 and value the cocoanut as it floated in the water 

 from island to island. The flat lime ledge of this 

 beach has then encouraged them to go up on the 

 firm land after the cocoanut. The crab was a 

 pure water breather when it came, accustomed 

 to suck the air out of the water by means of 

 wet gills. In the whole higher animal world 

 breathing begins with such gills, with crabs, 

 with mussels and with fish. Even today the 

 93 



