THE PALMS OF BRITISH INDIA AND CEYLON. 525 



firmer, the Tahitians change the name to Omate, and the ful]}^ ripe 

 nut is called Opaa; in this state it is sometimes, but seldom, 

 eaten, being used principally for making oil, as it contains a small 

 quantity of oily milk ; it is in this state the nuts are seen and sold in 

 Europe. In Ceylon, when the nut is fully ripe it is called Pol, or 

 curry coco-nut. The kernel, after being reduced to a small size 

 by a certain instrument (hiromane) is placed in a cloth, and water 

 being poured on it, a white juice is extracted by pressure, used invari- 

 ably, either with or without the grated kernel, in their various curries. 

 A sort of tart, or cheesecake, is made from the kernel of dr}^ nuts 

 rasped or pared down. In New Granada the Negroes boil it with 

 rice. On the Pacific Islands the meat of the ripe coco-nut, though 

 agreeable to the taste, is seldom eaten. It is fed to domestic animals 

 of all kinds, even to cats and dogs, and is very fattening. In Guam 

 it is rasped or grated and fed to chickens, but they do not \q,j so well 

 when living upon a coco-nut diet as when fed with corn. From 

 the grated meat a rich custard, or ' cream ' is expressed, which is 

 extensively used throughout Polynesia as an ingredient for native 

 dishes. One of the most savoury of these, in which it is cooked 

 with tender young leaves of Galadium colocasia, is in Sanwa called 

 " Palu-sami." This cream contains much oil, as well as carbo- 

 hydrate and proteid, and is consequently very nourishing as well as 

 pleasant to the taste. In Guam the natives combine it with rice in 

 various forms, and sometimes prepare it like a simple custard. It 

 makes an excellent broth when boiled with a fowl or with other 

 meat, and in the early days of long voyages nuts were carried to 

 sea and used by the sailors for making rice-milk, a dish which they 

 had learned from the natives to prepare fSafford). Another use 

 to which the natives of Guam apply the meat of the coco-nut is 

 the fattening of the " robber crab" (Birgus Icdro), which thej^ keep 

 in captivit}^ until fit for the table. The following is a description 

 of the habits of this crab by Charles Darwin : " The animal is very 

 common on all parts of the dry land of the Keeling Islands, 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 coco-nut 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 hammer- 

 ing 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. 

 This is certainly a curious case of instinct, and likewise of adapta- 

 tion in structure between two objects apparently so remote from each 



