CAPE SAN ANTONIO 



181 



ing about the back yard or under veranda 

 steps. 



This large Antillean land-crab is one of the most 

 interesting examples of a marine animal that has 

 become by special adaptation almost wholly ter- 

 restrial in habit, although he still breathes by gills. 

 As a matter of fact very little is definitely known 

 about their life history — even the assertion that 

 they deposit their eggs in the sea cannot be posi- 

 tively affirmed. By digging into their deep slant- 

 ing burrows where they hide most of the day, it 

 might develop that their young are hatched in 

 the water at the bottom of their subterranean 

 retreats. 



Among the wet leaves on the ground and in the 

 little heaps of stone were many fine coleoptera 

 and myriopods, and about the tops of the shrubs 

 and low trees fluttered many tempting butterflies. 

 Processions of leaf-cutting ants marched along in 

 narrow columns bearing their irregularly shaped 

 green parasols. Students have made close study 

 of this numerous tribe of leaf-cutting ants, and the 

 reports given of their life history and economy 

 read like fiction. There can be no question but 

 that these intelligent little creatures have reached 



