I shall try to follow our
young seedling on in life, therefore, so as to give, while I am about
it, a fairly comprehensive and complete biography of a single
flourishing coco-nut palm.
Beginning, then, with the fall of the nut from the parent-tree, the
troubles of the future palm confront it at once in the shape of the
nut-eating crab. This evil-disposed crustacean is common around the
sea-coast of the eastern tropical islands, which is also the region
mainly affected by the coco-nut palm; for coco-nuts are essentially
shore-loving trees, and thrive best in the immediate neighbourhood of
the sea. Among the fallen nuts, the clumsy-looking thief of a crab (his
appropriate Latin name is _Birgus latro_) makes great and dreaded havoc.
To assist him in his unlawful object he has developed a pair of front
legs, with specially strong and heavy claws, supplemented by a last or
tail-end pair armed only with very narrow and slender pincers. He
subsists entirely upon a coco-nut diet. Setting to work upon a big
fallen nut--with the husk on, coco-nuts measure in the raw state about
twelve inches the long way--he tears off all the coarse fibre bit by
bit, and gets down at last to the hard shell. Then he hammers away with
his heavy claw on the softest eye-hole till he has pounded an opening
right through it. This done he twists round his body so as to turn his
back upon the coco-nut he is operating upon (crabs are never famous
either for good manners or gracefulness) and proceeds awkwardly but
effectually to extract all the white kernel or pulp through the breach
with his narrow pair of hind pincers.
Pages:
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232