492 
KEELING ISLAND 
CHAP. 
seated in such shade, and drink the cool pleasant fluid of the 
cocoa-nut. In this island there is a large bay-like space, 
composed of the finest white sand : it is quite level, and is only 
covered by the tide at high water ; from this large bay smaller 
creeks penetrate the surrounding woods. To see a field of 
glittering white sand representing water, with the cocoa-nut 
trees extending their tall and waving trunks round the margin, 
formed a singular and very pretty view. 
I have before alluded to a crab which lives on the cocoa- 
nuts : it is very common on all parts of the dry land, and 
grows to a monstrous size : it is closely allied or identical with 
the Birgos latro. The front pair of legs terminate in very 
strong and heavy pincers, and the last pair are fitted with 
others weaker and much narrower. It would at first be 
thought quite impossible for a crab to open a strong cocoa-nut 
covered with the husk ; but Mr. Liesk assures me that he has 
repeatedly seen this effected. The crab begins by tearing the 
husk, fibre by fibre, and always from that end under which the 
three eye-holes are situated ; when this is completed, the crab 
commences hammering with its heavy claws on one of the eye¬ 
holes till an opening is made. Then turning round its body, 
by the aid of its posterior and narrow pair of pincers it 
extracts the white albuminous substance. I think this is as 
curious a case of instinct as ever I heard of, and likewise of 
adaptation in structure between two objects apparently so 
remote from each other in the scheme of nature as a crab and 
a cocoa-nut tree. The Birgos is diurnal in its habits ; but 
every night it is said to pay a visit to the sea, no doubt for the 
purpose of moistening its branchiae. The young are likewise 
hatched, and live for some time, on the coast. These crabs 
inhabit deep burrows, which they hollow out beneath the roots 
of trees ; and where they accumulate surprising quantities of 
the picked fibres of the cocoa-nut husk, on which they rest as 
on a bed. The Malays sometimes take advantage of this, and 
collect the fibrous mass to use as junk. These crabs are very 
good to eat ; moreover, under the tail of the larger ones there 
is a great mass of fat, which, when melted, sometimes yields as 
much as a quart-bottleful of limpid oil. It has been stated 
by some authors that the Birgos crawls up the cocoa-nut trees 
for the purpose of stealing the nuts ; I very much doubt the 
