Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

1836. CUKIOUS CRAB — TURTLE-FISHINC. 633 turtle to shipping, when they touched there, and the immense crops of cocoa-nuts which are produced annually on all the islets of the group were monopolized by Mr. Ross for his sole advantage. One daily task imposed upon the Malay women was to " husk"" a hundred nuts, collected for them by the men, who extract a gallon of oil from every ten. Another kind of oil, said to be very good, is dei'ived from the fat tail of a large land-crab, which feeds on cocoa-nuts. About a pint and a half may be obtained from one crab. The manner in which these creatures — nearly the size of a large cray-fish tap the nuts in order to get at their contents is curious. Num- bers of windfall nuts, in a comparatively soft state, are always to be fovmd lying about under the trees : a crab seizes one of these, and pegs away at the eyes (each nut has three eyes) with one of its claws, that is long and sharp, purposely, it would seem, until it opens a hole, through which the crab extracts the juice, and some of the solid part. The manner of ascending tall palm-trees is similar to that described at Otaheite, and requires strength as well as agility : both which are also shown by these Malays in their chases after turtle among the shallows and coral ' thickets' of the lagoon, where they abound. A party of men go in a light boat and look for a fine turtle in some shallow place. Directly one is seen, they give chase in the boat, endeavouring to keep it in a shallow, and tolerably clear place, till it begins to be tired by its exertions to escape ; then, watching a favourable mo- ment, a man jumps out of the boat and seizes the turtle. Away it darts, with the man on its back grasping its neck until he can get an opportunity, by touching ground with his feet, to turn it over, and secure his prize. Only the more active men can succeed well in this sort of fishing. Other unusual things were seen by us at this place, one or two of which I will mention. There are fish that live by feed- ing upon small branches of the coral, which grows in such pro- fusion in the lagoon. One species of these fish is about two feet and a half long, of a beautiful green colour about the head and tail, with a hump on its head, and a bony kind of mouth,