174 A CRUISE IN THE LACCADIVE SEA 



ful neighbours of Ameni are, as has been said, jealous 

 and overbearing — riches only lead to trouble, and that 

 desires gratified only beget further vain longings, and 

 that after all light sleep beneath ancestral palm trees 

 untroubled by fear or greed, means a pleasant if un- 

 romantic existence. 



On the sandy beach of the Cardamum lagoon there 

 were many swarms of the large grey Ocypode crab 

 {O. ceratophthahnMs), This crab, instead of flying swiftly 

 to its burrow when pursued, as most of its congeners do, 

 simply crouches close in a rudely-scooped hollow, and 

 there lies perfectly still, looking like a stone partly 

 embedded in the sand. Whether this curious feint 

 is to be regarded as the starting-point of the burrowing 

 habit of the Ocypodes, or as a convenient simplification 

 of that habit, it is difficult to say. Judging, however, 

 from the prevalence with which, among the higher 

 Crustacea, species are protected by their resemblance 

 to inanimate objects, such as bits of worm-eaten rock, 

 etc., I should imagine that the ancestors of the 

 Ocypodes were a stock of crabs that escaped the eyes 

 of their enemies by crouching motionless in unlifelike 

 attitudes, and that one branch of this stock was 

 perpetuated by certain individuals that crouched so 

 close as to make a form " or hollow in the sand. 

 This would give abundant protection to a species such 

 as Ocypoda ceratophthalmus, whose colour harmonises with 

 that of sand, but would be insufficient for conspicuously 



