such the sure, if somewhat slow, result. All sorts of creatures are thus secured by the crab, including, perhaps, on special occasions, a small and less wary fish or so. What makes the thing still more curious and interesting—from the standpoint of the evolutionary naturalist—is that the back of the clever strategist is covered all over with a crop of stiff, wiry bristles, which, curving inwards, maintain a firm hold of the weeds that lie upon them, and prevent their slipping off. No doubt these bristles have become more and more developed as the crab has become more and more in love with the ruse, to the success of which they now largely contribute: but which came first, the ruse or the bristles, that no one can say. On the one hand, the bristles, whilst yet small and but slightly curved, might sometimes, catching amongst and holding fragments of seaweed, etc., have suggested to the crab the use to which these might be put; but, on the other, as many creatures hide themselves in order to dart out on their prey, and as a good way of doing so in the case of a flat-backed creature would be by placing things on its back, the crab may possibly have thought of this without any structural facility to suggest the idea. Both these crabs that we have been considering exhibit their intelligence and live their lives in the sea, and it is with salt water and the rocky pools of the sea-shore that crabs, generally, are inseparably associated in our minds. Nevertheless there are land crabs, and even crabs that eat cocoanuts. Whether these latter are also in the habit of climbing the lofty palms on which the cocoanuts grow, throwing them down and then ascending again with them, in order to break them by repeating the process, having previously freed them from their huge husky envelope, does not seem to be quite certain, but such is the account explicitly given by the natives of the Samoan Islands. “I inquired of them,” says Mr. T. H. Hood, in his _Notes of a Cruise in H.M.S. “Fawn” in the Western Pacific_, “about the habits of the Ou-ou, or great cocoanut-eating crab, common here, and found the reports previously received from the natives corroborated. It ascends the cocoa trees, and, having thrown the nuts down, husks them on the ground; this operation performed, it again ascends with the nuts, which it throws down, generally breaking them at the first attempt, but, if not successful, repeating it till the object is attained.” This account, Mr. Hood goes on to say, was confirmed by every native subsequently spoken to on the subject. It is difficult to see how the natives should have been mistaken in regard to such a noticeable and very remarkable habit, and on the other hand, if they were inventing, why should they have all invented in one and the same way? In the new edition of Wood’s _Homes without Hands_ this account of Mr. Hood is still quoted without any qualifying statement in the form of a footnote.