7.V TBE COCOS-KEEUNQ ISLANDS. 27 



changed the white calcareous fore-shore into a dark vegetable 

 mould, its occupation seems gone, and it retires in quest of 

 new land to canquor. 



Further hiiidward the soil is tilled and turned up to the sun 

 and min hy a species of GeearcinitSj which lives almost entirely 

 in the fliT land, vi^iiting the sea only in times of great drought. 

 A still more elective tiller is the great eocoa-nut crab {Bir^us 

 latro\ one of the largest of shore Crustacea. It is chiefly noc- 

 titriud in its Iiabits, and is mtt so often seen as the others. It 

 iniikes in the ground deep tunnels, larger than rabbit burrows, 

 lined for warmth (?) with cocoa-nut fibre. It Las a habit of 

 climbing tlie e<icoa-nut palms, but whether to take the air or 

 for temporary lodging is doubtful; it does not rob the trees, 

 howcTer, as has been charged against it, since it feeds only on 

 fruits that have fallen. One of its pincer- claws is developed 

 irttu an organ of extrtiortlinary power, capable, when the creature 

 is enraged, of breaking a cocoa-nut shell or a man's limb. 1 be 

 iiiuer edges of the claw are armed with a series of white 

 eiuimeiled den tic illations whose resemblance to teeth is 

 singularly close, even to the irregular scarlet line below them 

 which might pass for gums. The Birgm feeds on the nuts 

 almost exclusively, using its great claw to denude the fruit of 

 the husk surrounding it, and to get at the eye of the nut, which 

 it hrts IcArned is the only easy gateway to the interior. 



Of the three eye-spots seen at the end of a cocoa-nut only 

 one permits an easy entrance. The Birgm does not waste its 

 energies in denuding the whole nut, and it never denudes the 

 wrong end. Having pierced the proper eye with one of its 

 spindle ambulatory legs, it rotates the nut round it till the 

 orifice is large enough to permit the insertion of its great claw 

 to break up the shell and triturate its contents, whose particles 

 it then carries to its mouth by means of its other and smaller 

 chelifcfous foot. 



From this nutritious diet it accumulates beneath its tail 

 a store of fat, which dissolves by heat into a rich yellow oil, of 

 which a large specimen wLU often yield as much i\s two pints. 

 Thickened in the sun, it forms an excellent substitute for 

 butter in all its uses. I discovered it to be a valuable pre- 

 serving lubricant for guns and steel instruments; and only 

 when a small Ixittle of it. which I hml had for two years, was 



