Crabs pursued by Eels. 2 1 9 



for walking over it presents quite as unsatisfactory a surface as 

 volcanic clinker. All the central part of the islet within the 

 inner drift beach is covered with scrubby grass and low bushes 

 of the same character as those at Bird Island. There were one 

 or two young shoots of a Barringtonia ; but nothing else in the 

 shape of an arborescent plant. Among the dead shells, light 

 driftwood, and bleached sponges and coral blown up on the inner 

 beach, I noticed some of the familiar rhomboidal fruits of a 

 Barringtonia. 



There were no land birds. The sea birds were identical with 

 those of Bird Island. Young unfledged gannets were waddling 

 about among the bushes, and as regards the other birds, their 

 nesting season also seemed to be over. I did not notice any 

 petrel burrows, but everywhere near the beach were the burrows 

 of a littoral crab, a species of the genus Ocypoda. On the rocks 

 at the northern extremity were multitudes of the widely distri- 

 buted Grapsus variegatus. When chasing them over the rocks of 

 the foreshore, I observed that they were reluctant to take to the 

 water, but preferred to keep clear of me by scampering away over 

 the coral further inshore. The cause of this strange behaviour on 

 their part soon became apparent ; for the rockpools about the 

 foreshore were tenanted by savage grey eels, ranging in length 

 from two to three feet, and I saw that the moment an unlucky 

 crab was forced to enter one of these pools, he was immediately 

 snapped up and devoured. I was surprised to see the coolness 

 with which an eel would every now and then raise its head above 

 the water in which it lay, and look about over the adjacent rocks 

 to see if any crabs were near. On starting an eel from its hiding 

 place, it would scuttle with astonishing rapidity over the low 

 rocks which separated it from the water's edge, so that it. 

 was no easy matter to secure one without the aid of a gun 

 Shooting them, as they wriggled off in this way, was rather 

 good sport. 



The island is evidently visited b}- turtle during the breeding 



