their nests. Hundreds of pounds are thus obtained and made into mats, beds, and many other articles of household use. STRENGTH AND TENACITY. The most remarkable feature about these crabs was their enormous strength. One was placed in an ordinary tin cracker-box, where there was no opportunity of taking hold; but the next morning the box was found completely punctured with holes, actually bitten through by the sharp, biting claws of the crab; and in another confined in the same way, the top of the box was fairly twisted off. Having so much muscular power, natives naturally approach them with some caution, when attempting their capture. I was informed that on one occasion a party went out to a place somewhat famous for them, and arriving at night, with the expectation of trying for the crabs the next day. But during the night the party was awakened by the most terrific screams, and, rushing into the wood near at hand with rush lights, they found one of the natives swinging partly from the huge leaf of a cocoanut tree, and screaming as if he was being hung. For some moments they could not make out what the trouble was, but finally was sure the man was in the grasp of an enormous Birgus. The native had attempted to climb a palm tree, but had been seized almost immediately by a crab which happened to be clinging to the branch. Naturally the crab held on, and had almost pulled the hair out of the man's head before he was rescued. The intelligence shown by these crabs is remarkable. They climb the palms, bite off a nut and allow it to drop, and thus break it open; and if they find a nut on the ground, they have been known to take it to the top of a tree and hurl it to the ground. Others, and generally the large ones, have been observed to beat it against a rock, and so break the shell. They invariably commence to tear away the husk at the end upon which is situated the two holes. When this is done, with the great claw, they hammer the holes until an opening is made, and then the body is twisted around, and one of the small hind legs that will just fit is introduced, the meat taken out bit by bit, and then the shell is broken. The crab is certainly a lowly creature, but it is remarkably intelligent in some ways, and also cunning. If you have ever tried to catch a wild lobster, you are aware how many wiles they have to effect their escape or delude their pursuers. Some years ago the question was raised in London, whether crabs remained in the same locality year after year, and finally it was resolved to test the question. So about a thousand crabs were caught and marked in various ways, and taken a distance of twenty miles, and put overboard, and in less than a week hundreds of these marked crabs were caught on their own grounds. PLANTAIN OR BANANA.. Of this fruit Humboldt says: I doubt whether there be any other plant that produces so great a quantity of nutritive substance in so small a space. Eight or nine months after the sucker is planted, it begins to develop its cluster. The fruit The fruit may be gathered in the tenth or eleventh month. When the stock is cut there is always found, among the numerous shoots that have taken root, a sprout, being two-thirds the height of its parent plant, and bearing fruit three months later. Thus a plantation of bananas perpetuates itself without requiring any care on the part of man, further than to cut the stalks when the fruit has ripened, and to stir the earth gently once or twice a year about the roots. A piece of ground of one hundred square metres of surface will contain from thirty to forty plants. During the course of the year, the same piece of ground (reckoning the weight of the cluster at from fifteen to twenty kilogrammes only) will yield 2,000 kilogrammes, or more than 4,000 pounds, of nutritive substance. What a difference between this product and that of the cereal grasses in most parts of Europe! The same extent of land planted with wheat would not produce above thirty pounds, and not more than ninety pounds of potatoes. Hence the product of the banana is to that of wheat as 133 to 1, and to that of potatoes as 44 to 1. The banana forms the principal food of these, as well as many other tropical countries, and the apathy and indolence of the natives in the tierras calientes, or hot regions, has been ascribed and probably with good reason-to the facility with which it supplies them with a means of subsistence. Again, the fruit is dried and pressed, after which it can be kept for a long time, forming a food not inferior to the dried figs of commerce. BECHE-DE-MER FISHING. In regard to the traffic in Beche-de-mer, for which there is such a demand in China and Japan, I have thought best to quote from Mr. H. B. Sterndale, who some years ago wrote many interesting papers on the islands of the Pacific: |