the large plantations of sago trees; but the water with which they are floated often forced us to abandon the attempt. That tree, so useful for the support of man, forms a part of the riches of the island.
The flat strand, at low water, is covered in many places with a multitude of crabs, of the species denominated cancer volans, which then emerge from the holes which they dig in the soft ground. This singular creature, one of whose claws is sometimes larger than its body, often becomes the prey of birds. I believe the facility with which its claws are disjoined from its body is the reason why one of them is almost always much larger than the other.[1]
A little excursion to the south of the town, near the quarter inhabited by the Europeans, brought us to the tomb of Rumphius. The simplicity of this monument reminded us of the manners of that able observer of nature. It was encircled with the beautiful shrub, known by the name of panax fruticosum.
- ↑ The great disproportion of the claws to the body, and to one another, is more probably a distinctive characteristic of this curious species of crab. I have seen many thousands of them; but never an individual in which this disproportion did not exist. Places situated to leeward of the muddy salt-flats, in which those creatures breed, are justly reckoned extremely insalubrious.—Translator.
