36o IN LOIVER FLORIDA WILDS 



what in different individuals. Occasionally one 

 shines out like a star of the first magnitude or a 

 Venus among the planets. About a quarter of an 

 hour after sunset they suddenly appear and the 

 hammocks and lowlands twinkle with their little 

 lanterns, but in an hour the illumination is mostly 

 over and in another hour scarcely one is seen. 

 After this at long intervals one individual may 

 show its light and may be seen even during the 

 dawn like some late reveler returning home from 

 a debauch. The effect of their brilliant flashes in 

 the dense, dark hammock is startling and uncanny. 

 The land crabs {Cardisoma guanhumi) though 

 already mentioned deserve further comment here 

 for they are especially active at night. They are 

 most abundant on low ground near salt water. 

 Their metropolis is in the West Indies but they are 

 well established along the Florida coast from the 

 vicinity of Palm Beach to Cape Sable. Here they 

 occasionally attain a spread of eighteen inches from 

 tip to tip of the claws though they reach a little 

 more than that in Cuba. Most of them are a dirty 

 blue; sometimes one is seen with a greenish or 

 yellowish cast and rarely they are red and violet. 

 They dig holes in which they live in low ground, 



