Mr. Broderip on the Habits of Paguri, 209 



the authoi-s cited give interesting information on this head: but, in 

 the Narrative of the late Bishop Heber, an account is given of 

 some land-crabs living at so great a distance from the sea, and obstructed by 

 such obstacles in their way to it, that I cannot forbear inserting the passage 

 to the manifest disadvantage of my own style. " The plain of Poonah 

 " is very bare of trees, and though there are some gardens immediately 

 " around the city, yet as both these and the city itself lie in a small 

 " hollow on the banks of the river Moola, they are not sufficiently con- 

 " spicuous to interrupt the general character of nakedness in t'ie picture, 

 " any more than the few young trees and ornamental shrubs with which 

 " the bungalows of tlie cantonment are intermingled. The principal and 

 " most pleasing feature, is a small insulated hill immediately over the 

 " town, with a temple of the goddess Parvati on its summit, aad a large 

 " tank which, when I saw it, was nearly dry, at its base. 



" All the grass land round this tank, and generally through the Deckan, 

 " swarms with a small land-crab, which burrows in the ground, and 

 " runs with considerable swiftness, even when encumbered with a bundle 

 " of food almost as big as itself. This food is grass, or the green stalks 

 " of rice, and it is amusing to see them sitting as it were upright, to cut 

 " their hay with their sharp pincers, then waddling off with the sheaf to 

 " their holes as quickly as their sidelong pace will carry them." * 



When we call to mind the position of Poonah, and read of the 

 neighbouring river and tank, we cannot help remembering the " Varii 

 " palustres rariae magnitudinis cancri" of Piso,f and feel inclined to ask 

 whether the river and the tank might not be the scene of ovipositing ? 

 It is not improbable that there may be a race of land-crabs appropriated 

 to continental or even insular situations out of reach of the ocean : and 



" bent dans la mer oil ils s'eclosent et s'attachent aussitot aux rochers, et quel- 

 " ques tems apres sortent de I'eau, se retirent sous les premieres herbes qu'ils 

 " trouvent, et montent ensuite avec leurs meres a la montagne." Nouvean 

 Voyage, Tome second, p. 225. Paris, 1742. Of the metamorphosis all natu- 

 ralists, before Mr. Thompson, appear to have been ignorant. 



* Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, by the lat ;i 

 Rev. Reginald Heber, D.D., Lord Bishop of Calcutta. Vol. 2, p. 207. 



t Hist. Nat. et Med. Ind. Occident., p. 76. 



