412 



Marvels of the Universe 



Photo hif] 



BECKONING 



The Beckoning Crabs a 

 huge pincer-ciaw, which 

 a distance. 



CRABS AMONG MANGROVE 



are so called from their manner of 

 makes them appear as though becUoning 



[ir. f-:avWe Kent 

 ROOTS, 

 carrying th 



relatively 

 friend at 



to which it is attached, and 

 which appears always to be 

 in danger of being over- 

 turned by the superior 

 weight of the big fist. As 

 they run along the sands 

 with this big claw held up — 

 as though they were afraid 

 of falling over it if carried 

 in front of them — they ap- 

 pear to be beckoning. One 

 species that occurs in the 

 Far East is named by the 

 Japanese Siho Maneki, 

 which is said to mean 

 " beckoning for the return 

 of the tide." 



Latreille, the French 

 naturalist, who defined the 

 characters of the group, 

 gave them a scientific name 

 which signifies laughable or 

 ridiculous. 



But in spite of their 

 grotesque demeanour, the 

 Beckoning Crabs are a 

 \-ery useful people. 



We acclaim certain indi- 

 x'iduals as empire-builders. 

 The Beckoning Crabs are 

 more than that : they 

 are world builders — indus- 

 trious creatures that, whilst 

 looking primaril}' after 

 their own interests, are 

 convert barren shores into 



helping to wrest new land from the dominions of the sea, and to 

 rich soil. 



The Beckoning Crab is a burrower. Like the benevolent earthworm, they excavate tunnels a 

 foot or more deep, and perhaps an inch in width. Bringing up pellets of damp sand from the depths, 

 they carry it to a distance of three or four feet from the mouth of their hole before depositing it, 

 and when their tunnel is completed they carry down bits of seaweed and other vegetable debris to 

 be consumed as food. Some species are said to make stores of food in a terminal chamber of their 

 tunnel. The burying of vegetable matter by hundreds of thousands of these little burrowers has 

 an appreciable effect. Mr. H. O. Forbes, who observed their work on the coral islands of the Eastern 

 Archipelago, says: " By the inner margin of some of the islands, and forming lagoonlets in some 

 of them, there are soft, limy mud-flats, which are gradually becoming land, mainly by slow eleva- 

 tion and by crustacean agency. One of the largest of these is in West Island. Its lagoon ward 

 portion near the entrance conduit, which is submerged at high tide, is tenanted by two, if not three, 

 species of Beckoning Crab. They live in narrow, corkscrew burrows, round the tops of which there 



