4S PERCY SLADEN TRUST EXPEDITION. 
meadows, and perhapsas deep. Each hole is iniiabited by a male and female, which differ 
in that the great chelee of the female are equal-sized and small, while that of the right 
side of the male is as big as its body and of a brilliant pink colour. They come out freely 
at night, but never wander from their holes in the daytime, the males often resting in 
their entrances with their eyes just above the ground and their great claws standing 
up straight into the air. Preyed on to a large degree by the crab-plover, they have 
become extraordinarily quick, and the least shadow, that of a stone thrown from under 
the coconut-trees over them, will cause all those for 2 or 3 yards on either side of its 
line to disappear. Of the birds, gulls, terns, dotterel, and herons abounded, and we saw 
also a few snipe, preying for the most part on worms of various sorts. In the wetter 
parts a bivalve, like an Orea, was very common in the mud. It must also have been 
Fig. 20. 
Low cliffs fringing Barachois Maurice, to the south of Diego Garcia. at low tide. 
often pecked at by birds, for it appeared to have acquired a definite habit of nipping off 
the end of its foot and of disappearing into the mud when disturbed, the small masses of 
tissue, the size of a hazel-nut, which we picked up causing us at first considerable 
perplexity. Here and there might be found, at the tops of the barachois, pools of water 
to which the sea at springs alone had access. In them were invariably a few fish and 
often prawns, neither of which seemed to have been in any way affected by the brackish 
nature of their water. Again, in others containing still fresher water were dragon-fly 
larvee and beetles, though no weed was able to grow. In one swamp near East Point 
were tortoises, doubtless introduced many years ago from Zanzibar or Madagascar by 
the natives. In such positions, too, in the decaying wood, were multitudes of Isopods, 
