128 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



while insects and land mollusca, usually so profuse in tropical lati- 

 tudes, were barely represented. Into the vacant places swarmed 

 Crustacea. Not an inch of the atoll world is secure from them. 

 The Ccenobita wander across from shore to shore and dispute any 

 stray edibles with the rats. Some crabs even take up their 

 residence in the tree tops of Pandanus, while, as everybody 

 knows, Birgus is as much at home on a palm bole as a squirrel 

 on an oak. As I believe, and have endeavoured to demonstrate 

 (pp. 22, 23, ante), that the coconut is foreign to the native flora, 

 and of comparatively recent introduction from abroad, it follows 

 that the taste for this nut has been acquired in historical times 

 by Birgus, whose original food was probably Pandanus fruit. 



" Human habitations are not even secure from crabs. Often 

 while quietly reading or writing, especially at night, have I seen 

 crabs, for instance Ocypoda ceratophthalma, steal warily across 

 the floor towards some attractive food. Deterred for the moment 

 by a missile or an exclamation, they would recommence like any 

 impertinent mouse their pertinaceous efforts when attention lulled. 

 One impudent intruder established himself in a burrow under my 

 very bunk. 



"Active as they are during the day, it is at night that the 

 land crabs hold high carnival. A traveller has thus described 

 his experience of his first night on an atoll* : ' It was fortunate 

 that we had provided ourselves with lights, or we might have 

 imagined our habitation to be occupied by every noxious reptile. 

 As far as the fading daylight had shown us, the Island appeared 

 covered with rough pebbles of coral. Imagine our surprise on 

 lying down to sleep, to find that all these imaginary pebbles had 

 become endowed with animation. A dull crackling, or rather 

 rustling, noise seemed to pervade the air, earth and sea, and so 

 disagreeably near to us, that I started up to ascertain the cause. 

 Judge of my astonishment, when I perceived the numerous rough 

 looking pebbles all alive, moving about briskly upon the floor of 

 our hut, and crawling over our mats in all directions. A little 

 nearer inspection discovered them to be shells of a species of 

 perrywinkle of all sizes, each being occupied by a kind of hermit 

 crab, projecting his rough and ugly looking claws from the orifice 

 of the shell. I went outside, and found the entire surface of the 

 Island in motion. The moon enabled us to see that not only on 

 the ground, but even on the trunks of the trees, on the roofs of 

 the huts, and every place to which their claws could gain access, 

 there were these creatures to be found.' 



" On the beaches the Crustacea were everywhere abundant, 

 particular species possessing each their special zone. About high 

 tide mark on the windward shore promenaded Grapsus maculatus, 



* Webster Last Cruise of the " Wanderer," n.d., p. 55. 



