TREE-CLIMBING CRABS

Shannon News, 8 June 1923, Page 4

TREE-CLIMBING CRABS

MONSTERS OF THE PACIFIC j LIKE PANTOMIME ANIMALS ( In ‘Atolls of the Sun," a new book ' of travel by Mr. Frederick O’Brien, | the author describes with entertaining charm his “experiences, impressions and dreams” on the strang'e coral reefs of the Pacific, where a "a, delicate fringe of green trees” surrounds each stiil lagoon and marks a sunken isle. Mr. O’Brien lias seen with his own eyes the monster robber-crab, which clirnebs trees and seizes peoples’ hair. As he floated upon the quiet surface of the pale green lagoon, on the coral in the deceptive half-light of the crepur.de was a hideous shellha eked monster, which had emerged from an unseen lair and moved slowly and 1 umberingly towards the coco-nut. Ires. Its motions and appearance in the semi-obscurity took on the quality of a dream beast, affrighting in its amazing novelty. It was like a great papier-mache animal in a pantomime/ He goes on to say how, “beset with apprehension that it might advance to the lagoon ... I swam swiftly to shore and called ‘Nohea,’” his Pan motuan com panion. While the crab was "climbing with unbelievadle spiced up the slippery grey trunk,” the Paumotuan quickly laid his trap, while calling down curses on “that devil of the night who robs us of our coco-nuts while wo sleep.’ Nohea gathered clay and leaves and "fashioned a wreath cf the mixture six inches wide and several feet in length.” ' With this he ascended the tree to a height of 40 feet, bound the wreath round the palm trunk, and returned. They waited. "We heard plainly a grating, incisive sound, and in a moment a huge coco-nut fell from among the swaying trees to the earth . . .Then I heard a scratching, and peering through the darkness with the aid of my electric torch I saw the collossal crab coming down the trunk.

Ml- 11(■ 111 on to the slippery trunk by the sharp points of his walking' lego aiul back war dly depending with extreme care.”

What was going to happen as the animal touched the girdle of clay and leaves?

“The robber crab, touching the clay, moved less carefully, and suddenly, to my astonishment, let go. his hold and with claws wildly beating the air, whirled downward from the height of 4 0 foot, crashing on the rocks at the foot of the tree. With a thud the immense shell was cracked and the monster lay inert upon the coral stones.” Of course the explanation is that the crah thought that the clay he touched was at the bottom of the tree and that he had only to hurry off and gather his coco-nuts!.

In carrying a coco-nut (and a green coco-nut is a huge thing compared with the coco-nut as it reaches this .country) the robber crab held it under some of its walking legs and retired, raised on the tips of its members a foot from the. ground. Its body measured two feet long by eighteen inches wide. It did not use its claws in ascending the tree, but clung with the sharp points of its legs, and I saw it go up steep rocks upon these.” The natives dread these huge, uncanny robbers.

“Nolica .said they were not easy to trap, and that more than onco a Pauinatunn, who had climbed a tree in the night to procure nuts, to his great horror had had his hair seized by a crab. He said that they usually bit off from six: to ten nuts upon each ascent of a palm.”