Land Crustacea. 165 



l)oth sides at once. The chelce are extremely powerful, and are 

 used with great effect when an opportunity occurs. 



These crabs eat fruits, the pith of the sago-palm and the 

 screw-pines, dead rats and other carrion, and any of their fellows 

 that may have been injured. They frequently ascend trees to 

 ■a great height in search of food, and occasionally dozens may be 

 seen round a sago-palm of which the fruit is ripening, some 

 ascending and descending the trunk, others eating the fallen fruit. 



After dark, as a rule, these crabs cease to wander about, and 

 I found that many of them, particularly the smaller ones, climb 

 a short distance up tree trunks or into low bushes, probably to 

 escape being disturbed by the rats. In moonlight and in the light 

 of the camp-fire they may keep moving all the night. 



They are excellent scavengers, and have a curious habit of often 

 dragging their food long distances before attempting to eat it. 

 I have seen a crab laboriously pulling a bird's wing up the first 

 inland cliff, half-a-mile or more from the camp whence it had 

 stolen it. 



I never saw one of these crabs voluntarily enter the sea, and 

 they do not appear to migrate to it for the purpose of laying 

 their eggs. At the beginning of the year numerous females 

 carrying large masses of eggs were seen at long distances from 

 the coast and on the highest ground ; and about the same time 

 young crabs not more than an inch or two long, but otherwise 

 like the adults, were fairly common. Mr. Andrew Clunies-Ross 

 told me that he believes the eggs are hatched out while the females 

 are buried in holes in the ground. During the wet season both 

 sexes seem to bury themselves temporarily while casting their shell. 



5. Coenobita clypeata (Herbst). 



€ancerclypeatus, Herbst, Nat. Krabben und Krebse, ii, 1796, p. 22, pi. xxiii,fig. 2. 



This large hermit crab is found in considerable numbers ; it 

 is commonest on the lower terraces near the sea, though not 

 unfrequently met with in the higher parts of the island. It 

 usually inhabits large Trochus shells, and the occurrence of these 

 •on the hills far from the sea was difficult to account for until 

 this circumstance was noticed. These crabs, like Birgus, are good 

 climbers ; they ascend steep rock faces and get into small trees 

 and bushes in search of food : when disturbed, they let themselves 

 fall at whatever height they may be. 



There are several other species of hermit crabs living on the 

 beaches, but since these belong rather to the marine fauna they 

 need not be noticed here. 



A small fresh-water Crustacean, apparently an Amphipod, was 

 collected from the mud of a small stream on the East Coast ; 

 unfortunately these specimens have been lost. 



