get to the meat with their teeth.

There is a crab here, too, that could teach even the wisest,
sun-employing pig some tricks in economics. He is the last word in
adaptation to environment, with an uncanny knowledge that makes the
uninformed look askance at the tale-teller. These crabs climb
cocoanut-trees to procure their favorite food. They dote on cocoanuts,
the ripe, full-meated sort. They are able to enjoy them by various
endeavors demanding strength, cleverness, an apparent understanding
of the effect of striking an object against a harder one, and of the
velocity caused by gravity. Nuts that resist their attempts to open
them, they carry to great heights, to drop them and thus break their
shells.

These crabs are called by the scientists _Birgos latro_, by the
Marquesans _tupa_, by the Paumotans _kaveu_, and by the Tahitians,
_ua vahi haari_. It was a never-failing entertainment on my walks
in the Paumotas to observe these great creatures, light-brown or
reddish in color, more than two feet in length, stalking about with
their bodies a foot from the ground, supported by two pairs of
central legs. They can exist at least twenty-four hours without
visiting the water, of which they carry a supply in reservoirs on
both sides of the cephalothorax, keeping their gills moist.

[Illustration: A Marquesan home on a _paepae_]

[Illustration: Isle of Barking Dogs]

They live in large deep burrows in the cocoanut-groves, which they
fill with husks, so that the natives often rob them to procure a
quick supply of fuel. These dens are contrived for speedy entry when
pursued. Terrifying as they appear when surprised on land, they
scuttle for safety either to a hole or to the sea, with an agility
astounding in a creature so awkward in appearance. Though they may
be seen about at all hours of the day, they make forays upon the
cocoanuts only at night.

Darwin first saw these creatures in the Indian Ocean, and said that
they seek the sea every night to moisten their branchiae. The young
are hatched and live for some time on the sea-coast, venturing far
from water only as they grow older. Darwin said that their feat in
entering the cocoanut "is as curious a case of instinct as was ever
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 cocoanut-tree."

When darkness descends and all is quiet, the robber crab ascends the
tree