T2 Natural History of Fanning’s Group. (February, 
only life of the islands. The sea-birds range away from the 
land, in pursuit of their finny prey, to a distance varying from 
sixty to eighty and sometimes even to a hundred miles ; and so 
unerring are they in their return to their breeding and roosting 
places, that we were told the captains of the small schooners, 
who seek the islands to harvest their crop of cocoanuts and to 
look about for guano, find the objects of their search by laying 
to, when they imagine themselves somewhere in their vicinity, 
until evening, when the birds wing their way homeward, and then 
shaping their course by the direction of the flight of the birds. 
The other terrestrial animals of Palmyra are a minute shell, a 
Tornatellina, that clings to the under surface of the fronds of the 
Polypodium aureum, and a land leech that fastens itself to the 
eyelids of the young birds. 
_A soldier-crab ( Cenobita Gliviert) quits the water and lives on 
the land at certain seasons of the year, and it may therefore be 
properly considered terrestrial. They are ubiquitous ; they climb 
the trees and bushes, dragging after them the heavy shells of the 
Turbo argyrostoma. 
Washington Island is a home of the gigantic Burgus latro. 
“ In the Pacific this species, or one with closely allied habits, is 
said to inhabit a single coral island north of the Society group.” 
Since this statement of Darwin’s was made, we have gained a 
much better knowledge of its distribution, so that now it may 
be said there is scarcely a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean 
where it is not found. The stories about this crab climbing 
trees after cocoanuts are entirely unfounded. It lives in bur- 
rows in the ground, and feeds on the cocoanuts as they fall from — 
the trees. It first strips off the husk, shred by shred, and 
then, with its strong pincers, breaks through the shell at the 
extremity that holds the eyes. The strength of their claws is 
sufficient to crush a lath in twain, and so tenaciously do they 
hold on:to anything when once they have obtained a grip, that I 
have known them to hang suspended from a tree for an hour or 
more, holding on by their claws. Sometimes the unwary native, 
in searching their burrows with his hand for the fine cocoanut 
husk which forms their bed, is surprised to find his fingers in the 
vice-like grasp of the crab; and it may be interesting to know 
that in such a dilemma a gentle titillation of the under soft parts 
of the body with any light material will cause the crab to 1oose 
his hold. They are said to visit the sea at night for the purpose 
of wetting their branchiæ. 
