BELMONT BEACH. 
51 
time it is seen to be pierced with innumerable little 
holes ; and hundreds of a tiny Calling-crab [Gelasi- 
mus vocans) are running over its surface, the males 
of which hold up their enormous claw in front, as if 
in defiance. At the approach of an intruder, every 
one hastens into his burrow, and in a moment the 
muddy bank, that was alive with the moving atoms, 
is perfectly still ; except that a dull-coloured but 
agile beetle {Cicindela Guadalupensis) is flitting about 
and alighting upon it. The little Crabs are very 
swift and wary, so that it is difiicult to capture them, 
except by making a sudden rush from a distance 
among them. 
Beyond this creek, as the stream is called, a pro- 
jecting point runs out into the sea, round which the 
coast is more rocky. A low cliff terminates the land^ 
excavated in shallow caverns, from the roofs of which 
the Cave Swallows {Hirundo poeciloma) suspend their 
mud-formed nests ; and great masses of honeycombed 
limestone lie in the sea at its base. After a while, 
the clifi’ becomes gradually obsolete, and the beach 
of coral sand reappears. 
All along the beach at high-water-mark there lay, 
at the time of which I speak, an immense number of 
Sponges, exhibiting great variety of colour, form, and 
structure ; they were mingled with Sea-weeds, and 
had been, as I was informed, thrown up by the sea 
in a very tremendous gale that had occurred a few 
months before my visit. I collected some hundreds 
of specimens of the different species, with little 
labour; and, as they had all dried with the gelatinous 
