Birgus the Bobber. 
129 
hideous as he appears, the palm crab of the 
Paumotu, Society, Tonga, and Ellice Groups in 
the South Pacific is a creature greatly prized by 
both natives and whites for the delicate flavour of 
its white flesh, and for the fat of its short lobster¬ 
like tail. Among the high, mountainous, and 
forest-clad islands of both the North and 
South Pacific, it is not so common as among 
the narrow and sandy palm-clad atolls of the 
Ellice, Tokelau, and other equatorial archi¬ 
pelagos, where, on account of the paucity of 
human inhabitants, and the enormous number 
of coconut trees and pandanus palms which 
afford them food, these crabs are very plentiful, 
and attain a great size. Especially is this so on 
the sparsely inhabited but noble lagoon islands 
of Christmas, Maduro, and Fanning’s Atolls, 
where, with coconuts, turtle, fish, and sea birds, 
they constitute the food of the brown-skinned, 
stalwart natives. 
The prevailing colours of the uu (pronounced 
00-00 by the Samoans) are various shades of grey 
and blue on the carapace of its back and tail, 
and a pale yellow or white underneath the 
whole of its body and legs, changing into a light 
red as the last joint of each leg, or rather claw, 
10 
