CHAP. XXX.] SFIDSHS, LIZAkDS, AND CRABS. 433 



dloft in search of aome stninge-voiced bird. I soon found 

 it necessary not only to brush away the web, but also to 

 destroy the spiouer; fitr at first, having cleared the path one 

 day, I found the next morning that the industrious insects 

 had spread their nets again in tlie very same places. 



The lizards were equally strikmg by their numbers, 

 variety, and the situations in which they were found. The 

 beautiful blue-tailed species so almndant in K6, was not 

 seen here. The Am lizards are more varied but more 

 sombre in their colours— shades of greeu^ grey, brown, and 

 even black, being very frequently seea Every slmib and 

 herbaceous plant was alive with them, everj' rotten trunk 

 or dead branch served as a station for some of these active 

 little insect-hunters, who, I fear, to satisfy their gross 

 appetites, destroy many gems of the insect world, which 

 would feast the eyes and delight the heart of our more 

 discriminating entomologists. Another curious feature of 

 the jnngle here was the multitude of sea-shells everywhere 

 met with on the ground and high up on the branches 

 and foliage, all inhabited by hermit-crabs, who forsake the 

 beach to wander in the forest. I have actually seen a 

 spider carryiiig away a good-sized shell and devouring its 

 (probably juvenile) tenant On the beach, which I had to 

 walk along every morning to reach the forest, tliese crea- 

 tures swarmed by thousands. Every dead shell, from the 

 largest to the most minute, was appropriated by them. 

 They formed small social parties of ten or twenty around 

 bits of stick or seaweed, but dispersed hurriedly at the 

 sound of approaching footsteps. After a windy night, that 

 nast)''-looking Chinese delicacy the sea-slug was sometimes 

 thrown up on the beach, wluch was at such times thickly 

 strewn with some of the most beautiful shells that adorn 

 our cabinets, along ^v\th fragments and masses of coral 

 and strange sponges, of which I picked up more than 

 twenty different sorts. In many cases sponge and coral 

 are so much alike that it is only on touching them that 

 they can be distinguished, Quantities of seaweed, toi>, 

 are thrown up ; but strange as it may seem, these are fax 

 less beautiful and less varied than may be found on any 

 favourable part of our own coasts. 



The natives here, even those who seem to he of pure 

 7 V 



