The Outline of Science, Volume 1

On some of the coral islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans there lives a land-crab, Birgus, which has learned to breathe on land. It breathes dry air by means of curious blood-containing tufts in the upper part of its gill-cavity, and it has also rudimentary gills. It is often about a foot long, and it has very heavy great claws, especially on the left-hand side. With this great claw it hammers on the "eye-hole" of a coconut, from which it has torn off the fibrous husk. It hammers until a hole is made by which it can get at the pulp. Part of the shell is sometimes used as a protection for the soft abdomen—for the robber-crab, as it is called, is an offshoot from the hermit-crab stock. Every year this quaint explorer, which may go far up the hills and climb the coco-palms, has to go back to the sea to spawn. The young ones are hatched in the same state as in our common shore-crab. That is to say, they are free-swimming larv which pass through an open-water period before they settle down on the shore, and eventually creep up on to dry land. Just as open-water turtles lay their eggs on sandy shores, going back to their old terrestrial haunt, so the robber-crab, which has almost conquered the dry land, has to return to the seashore to breed. There is a peculiar interest in the association of the robber-crab with the coco-palm, for that tree is not a native of these coral islands, but has been introduced, perhaps from Mexico, by the Polynesian mariners before the discovery of America by Columbus. So the learning to deal with coconuts is a recent achievement, and we are face to face with a very good example of evolution going on. EARLY LIFE-HISTORY OF THE SALMON 1. The fertilised egg, shed in the gravelly bed of the river. 2. The embryo within the egg, just before hatching. The embryo has been constricted off from the yolk-laden portion of the egg. 3. The newly hatched salmon, or alevin, encumbered with its legacy of yolk (Y.S.). 4 and 5. The larval salmon, still being nourished from the yolk-sac (Y.S.), which is diminishing in size as the fish grows larger. 6. The salmon fry about six weeks old, with the yolk fully absorbed, so that the young fish has now to feed for itself. The fry become parr, which go to the sea as smolts, and return as grilse. In all cases the small figures to the right indicate the natural size. THE SALMON LEAPING AT THE FALL IS A MOST FASCINATING SPECTACLE Again and again we see them jumping out of the seething foam beneath the fall, casting themselves into the curtain of the down-rushing water, only to be carried back by it into the depths whence they have risen. One here and another there makes its effort good, touches the upper lip of the cataract, gives a swift stroke of its tail, and rushes on towards those upper reaches which are the immemorial spawning beds of its race. [Pg 197]