I Soon Found It Necessary Not Only To
Brush Away The Web, But Also To Destroy The Spinner; For At
First, Having Cleared The Path One Day, I Found The Next Morning
That The Industrious Insects Had Spread Their Nets Again In The
Very Same Places.
The lizards were equally striking by their numbers, variety, and
the situations in which they were found.
The beautiful blue-
tailed species so abundant in Ke was not seen here. The Aru
lizards are more varied but more sombre in their colours - shades
of green, grey, brown, and even black, being very frequently
seen. Every shrub and herbaceous plant was alive with them, every
rotten trunk or dead branch served as a station for some of these
active little insect-hunters, who, I fear, to satisfy their gross
appetites, destroy many gems of the insect world, which would
feast the eyes and delight the heart of our more discriminating
entomologists. Another curious feature of the jungle here was the
multitude of sea-shells everywhere met with on the ground and
high up on the branches and foliage, all inhabited by hermit-
crabs, who forsake the beach to wander in the forest. I lave
actually seen a spider carrying away a good-sized shell and
devouring its (probably juvenile) tenant. On the beach, which I
had to walls along every morning to reach the forest, these
creatures swarmed by thousands. Every dead shell, from the
largest to the most minute, was appropriated by them. They formed
small social parties of ten or twenty around bits of stick or
seaweed, but dispersed hurriedly at the sound of approaching
footsteps.
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