492 KEELING ISLAND chap. 



seated in such shade, and drink the cool pleasant fluid of the 

 cocoa-nut. In this island there is a large bay-like space, 

 composed of the finest white sand : it is quite level, and is only 

 covered by the tide at high water ; from this large bay smaller 

 creeks penetrate the surrounding woods. To see a field of 

 glittering white sand representing water, with the cocoa-nut 

 trees extending their tall and waving trunks round the margin, 

 formed a singular and very pretty view. 



I have before alluded to a crab which lives on the cocoa- 

 nuts : it is very common on all parts of the dry land, and 

 grows to a monstrous size : it is closely allied or identical with 

 the Birgos latro. 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 cocoa-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 hammering 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. I think this is as 

 curious a case of instinct as ever I heard of, and likewise of 

 adaptation in structure between two objects apparently so 

 remote from each other in the scheme of nature as a crab and 

 a cocoa-nut tree. The Birgos is diurnal in its habits ; but 

 every night it is said to pay a visit to the sea, no doubt for the 

 purpose of moistening its branchiae. The young are likewise 

 hatched, and live for some time, on the coast These crabs 

 inhabit deep burrows, which they hollow out beneath the roots 

 of trees ; and where they accumulate surprising quantities of 

 the picked fibres of the cocoa-nut husk, on which they rest as 

 on a bed. The Malays sometimes take advantage of this, and 

 collect the fibrous mass to use as junk. These crabs are very 

 good to eat ; moreover, under the tail of the larger ones there 

 is a great mass of fat, which, when melted, sometimes yields as 

 much as a quart-bottleful of limpid oil. It has been stated 

 by some authors that the Birgos crawls up the cocoa-nut trees 

 for the purpose of stealing the nuts ; I very much doubt the 



