Queer Game 



" One day we entered a strip of country that was 

 covered with locusts, and when they rose into the air 

 they almost darkened the sun, giving it a dull cop- 

 pery hue. We fairly waded through locusts, and 

 that night came to the seashore to find that the dead 

 locusts were piled up on the beach by the waves in a 

 perfect wall for miles. They had flown out to sea, 

 blown by the wind, and been washed in by the waves. 

 The odor was sickening, and to escape it we traveled 

 for miles down the beach before we made our camp, 

 and here it was that the singular experience occurred. 

 We noticed almost immediately that the white sandy 

 beach was fairly riddled with the burrows of a large 

 land-crab that was the most rapid runner I had ever 

 seen. Some of the naturalists wished to capture some, 

 so a hunt was begun, and by mere accident several of 

 the party were on horseback. 



' The crabs would not always take to their holes, 

 and one chased by me ran up the beach on the hard 

 sand. The crab ran like a streak of light for almost 

 a hundred yards, and I had great difficulty in catching 

 up with it ; when I did, and reached down to strike it 

 with a bamboo, it stopped, then ran as rapidly back in 

 a direct line, while my horse went on and lost twenty 

 feet in the turn, and by the time I had wheeled about, 

 the crab had scurried far ahead and was at the mouth 

 of its den, dodging in as I came up. 



" Another crab was started, giving me a zig-zag 

 race, actually tiring the horse out by the sudden and 



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