CBABS — LOBSTERS. 255 



crabs, bears a great resemblance to the paguri. It is said to 

 climb the palm-trees, for the sake of detaching the heavy nuts ; 

 but Mr. Darwin, who attentively observed the animal on the 

 Keeling Islands, tells us that it merely lives upon those thai 

 spontaneously fall from the tree. To extract its nourishment 

 from the hard case, it shows an ingenuity which is one of the 

 most wonderful instances of animal instinct. It must first of 

 all be remarked, that its front pair of legs is terminated by very 

 strong and heavy pincers, the last pair by others, narrow and 

 weak. After having selected a nut fit for its dinner, the crab 

 begins its operations by tearing the husk, fibre by fibre, from 

 that end under which the three eye-holes are situated ; it then 

 hammers upon one of them with its heavy claws, until an opening 

 is made. Hereupon it turns round, and by the aid of its pos- 

 terior pincers, extracts the white albuminous substance. It 

 inhabits deep burrows, where it accumulates surprising quanti- 

 ties of picked fibres of cocoa-nut husks, on which it rests as on 

 a bed. Its habits are diurnal ; but every night it is said. to pay 

 a visit to the sea, no doubt for the purpose of moistening its 

 branchiae. It is very good to eat, living as it does on choice 

 vegetable substances ; and the great mass of fat, accumulated 

 under the. tail of the larger ones, sometimes yields, when melted, 

 as much as a quart of limpid oil. Thus our taking possession of 

 the Keeling Islands, as a coaling station for the steamers from 

 Australia to Ceylon, bodes no good to the Birgus. 



The long tail, which the paguri sedulously conceal in shells, 

 serves the shrimps and lobsters as their chief organ of locomo- 

 tion, for although these creatures have well-formed legs, they 

 make but slow work of it when they attempt to crawl. But 

 nothing can equal the rapidity with which they dart backwards 

 through the water, by suddenly contracting their tail. Thus 

 the Lobster makes leaps of twenty feet at one single bound, and 

 the little shrimp equals it fully in velocity in proportion to its size, 

 and belongs unquestionably to the most active of the denizens of 

 the ocean. It swarms in incalculable numbers on the sandy 

 shores of the North Sea, where it is caught in nets attached to a 

 long cross pole, which the fishermen, walking-knee deep in the 

 water, push along before them. Boiled shrimps are a well 

 known delicacy ; and the Squilla Mwntis of the Mediterranean, 

 which resembles our common shrimp in outer form, but essen- 



