THE LITTORAL AND MARINE FAUNA 315 



noticed that some carry a large right claw in front of their 

 bodies — as a boxer waiting to parry a blow — while others carry 

 a well-developed left claw instead. These holes are excavated 

 anew with every fall of tide, and so the crabs are always 

 busy ; indeed, their lives are passed in surprising activity, and 

 the rapidity with which one will decide whether to run for 

 the water or for the shelter of his hole, when danger threatens 

 him, shows a most extraordinary aptitude for taking in a 

 situation at a glance. Nothing escapes the watch-tower eyes, 

 and their range of vision appears to bejparticularly long, for 

 they are aware of the presence of a man at a surprisingly 

 great distance ; and when one has found safety in his hole, he 

 soon learns when danger has passed, for the two great eyes 

 slowly protrude from the hole and take an observation of 

 everything going on outside. 



The crabs that have made the next step towards the land 

 are the quaint little " fiddlers " (native name, Kapeting delima) 

 of the genus Gelasmus, tiny greenish creatures with one great 

 pink claw as large as all the rest of the animal. The pink 

 claw is carried in front of the body in a most grotesque 

 fashion, and is practically all that is seen of the animal as one 

 walks over the muddy flats in which they live, for they are 

 very shy, and they rapidly disappear into their holes as 

 an intruder approaches. The melting from sight of the 

 great army of pink-clawed "fiddlers" is very curious, for, at 

 about the same distance all round, these quaint creatures 

 disappear, and one becomes the centre of a moving circle 

 whose fringe is made up of vanishing pink claws and tiny 

 greenish bodies. In the same mud flats — and practically all 

 over some of the islands — are the large burrows of the 

 Kapeting halong {Cardisoma hirtipes), a large and powerful 

 crab whose back is dull purple and whose legs are pale yellow. 

 This crab is a very important item in the economy of the 

 islands, for it has a habit of burying the husks of the coconut, 

 and so helping to produce the surface layer of vegetable mould 

 which clothes the more densely vegetated islets. 



It has not completely cut itself off from the sea, and 



