There are also land-crabs which climb the tall cocoa-nut palms, and feed on the nuts, tearing them open with strong unpleasant-looking pincers. And one kind is more troublesome than an English mole or rabbit, from the aggravating manner in which it burrows in the ground, making such innumerable holes as to render any bit of grass quite honeycombed. It would be very dangerous to ride on. But by far the most attractive members of the crab family are those which inhabit such muddy shores as those of Suva harbour, near the mouths of the rivers, where they were to me an unfailing source of amusement. I spent hours watching them stealing cautiously out of their holes when they were sure the coast was clear, but darting back like a flash of lightning at the faintest movement of any living thing, even the vibration of the most cautious footstep. But if I waited very patiently and motionless, they presently reappeared one by one, till all along the shore I saw their strange bright-coloured claws waving aimlessly in the air. These crabs are tiny creatures, whose whole body rarely exceeds an inch in diameter; but they own one huge claw as large as their whole body, and when feeding they hold this up as a guard, as if shielding their eyes, while with a tiny one they gather up their food on the shore, lifting an atom at a time into their mouth. This large pincer is invariably of some bright colour—yellow, rose-colour, or scarlet—while the rest of the body is black and white, purply, or brown. You cannot think how curious it is to see the whole shore dotted with these waving yellow claws, which, on the very slightest movement on your part, vanish in the twinkling of an eye, and leave you standing alone on a dull expanse of brown mud, without a symptom to suggest the existence of this great army of crabs. How delighted Ran would be if he could only see the daring little bronze lizards, with bright blue tails, which keep darting about the verandah and all about the rooms. I am sitting on a long wicker-chair, and a big lizard and a little one have been playing hide-and-seek for the last two hours, the little one darting in and out through the holes in the wicker-work, sometimes at my back, sometimes darting under the chair and reappearing in front: sometimes I catch a glimpse of a head whose diamond eyes peep through the little round holes in the wicker; then a bit of blue tail just reveals itself; sometimes it hides in the folds of my dress. Altogether it is one of a family of great darlings.