CRABS AND BEETLES. 
19 
singular cousins-german, the flattened shield-like 
clypeasters which, dead and bleached, were strewn 
along the strand as I jumped ashore at Praya do 
Tinboy. All around me I beheld numbers of those 
swift -footed horsemen crabs (Ocypode), which 
scampered to their holes in the yellow sand when 
they observed me ; and I captured, after exceeding 
pains and many abortive attempts, about a dozen 
silvery-white tiger-beetles which, alighting upon the 
dazzling sand, ran rapidly a little way, and then 
flew off again. 
On all sides rose sombre-tinted granite rocks of 
colossal magnitude, smooth, and speckled every- 
Avhere Avitli lichens white, black, yellow, reddish, 
and brown. Growing from the fissures of the 
rocks that skirted the shore, Avere clumps of huge 
columnar cactuses, and springing from the sides of 
yaAAming gaps, Avere aloes Avith dark green, S2:>iky 
leaves, and floAvering stems, tAventy, and even 
thirty feet high. Some of us have read about 
the straAvberry-plant of Saint Pierre, and hoAV he 
despaired of ever being able to Avuite the histoiy 
