M. Darwin in his _Voyage round the World_, thus describes a Crab which
lives upon Cocoa-nuts, and which he found on Keeling Island, in the
South Seas: "It is very common on all parts of the dry land, and grows
to a monstrous size; it has a front pair of legs, terminated by very
strong and heavy pincers, and the least pair by others which are narrow
and weak. It would at first be thought quite impossible for a crab to
open a strong cocoa-nut covered with the husk; but M. Liesk assures me
he has repeatedly seen the operation effected. The crab begins by
tearing the husk, fibre by fibre, and always from that end under which
the three eye-holes are situated; when this is completed, the crab
commences hammering with its heavy claws on one of these eye-holes till
an opening is made. Then, turning round its body, by the aid of its
posterior and narrow pair of pincers, it extracts the white albuminous
substance. I think this is as curious a case of instinct as ever I heard
of, and likewise of adaptation in structure between two objects
apparently so remote from each other in the scheme of nature, as a crab
and a cocoa-nut."
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