Crabs, Lobsters, etc. 



brought home by travellers. The robber or coconut 

 crab, as he is sometimes called, is enormously powerful for 

 a crab and a plucky fighter. In his encounters, curiously 

 enough, he does not use his strong pincers, but lunges 

 violently with his first pair of legs, which are armed with 

 extraordinarily sharp claws. The food of this animal is 

 uncommon in the extreme ; coconuts appear to be the 

 choicest fare, but it is by no means averse to the pith of 

 the screw pines and sago palms, also to dead rats, birds 

 and other carrion. 



One species is said to climb coconut-trees, and having 

 selected a choice nut, to throw it to the ground, whither 

 it descends to remove the husk. Having done so, the 

 animal reascends the tree with the denuded nut in its 

 claws, and throws it to the ground from a height in order 

 to break it, which it usually does at the first attempt. 

 How much truth there may be in the story we are not 

 prepared to say ; it sounds rather too far-fetched to be 

 believed ; but many animal stories sound equally unbeliev- 

 able till we learn that they are true. 



Of another species Darwin gives a good account. He 

 says : " I have before alluded to a crab which lives on 

 coconuts ; it is very common on all parts of the dry land, 

 and grows to a monstrous size. . . . 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 coconut 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 under 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 like- 



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