CRABS. 
15 
overhead, swoops like a thunderbolt and carries him 
off. The great kingfisher, concealed in an overhanging 
bough, watches its opportunity, and when he has wandered 
far from his hole, darts upon him and scoops him up 
in its long beak. The kestrel hawks him, dogs hunt 
him in sheer wantonness, jackals hunt him to eat him, 
owls lie in wait for him, and when he takes refuge in 
the water, an army of sharks and rays is ready for him. 
And man closes the list. 
“ These wild eyes that watch the wave 
In roarings by the coral reef” 
are watching mostly for crabs. He is drawn from his hole 
with hooks, dug out with shovels, caught in traps, netted 
with nets, and even in the darkness of night distracted 
with the sudden glare of flambeaux and knocked over 
with sticks. 
Many are the ways in which the race of crabs have 
sought to shun their thousand foes, some by watchfulness 
and wisdom, or cunning and skill, some along paths of 
degeneracy and shame. In the aeons long gone by, it 
seems, there lived a craven crab who condescended to 
seek safety by thrusting his hinder end into an empty 
shell, and to-day his descendants are as the sand on 
