If de Rougemont had Owned Camera!

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 484, 13 October 1928, Page 27

If de Rougemont had Owned Camera!

(Continued from Page 26) This is extended upon its stalk until it attains a length of three or four inches. Upon the end is the eye and it j waves it in all directions and is able, 1 strtmge as it may sound, to look round ! corners with it. But immediately a hand is waved or a movement of the body made, the eye will dart back' into the recess and the same procedure ; takes place later, if one has the time and interest to repeat the perform- i ance.

The crab that carries its home j round on its back is too well known to need mention, but at parts of the coast, particularly near Yampi Sound, the sandy beach for some hundreds of yards is literally alive with them. Viewed from a distance the sand appears to be continually moving. The crabs move along in waves, until danger threatens, when they disappear like magic, digging in under the sand. The noise they make, rattling their shells against each other, is audible for a considerable distance. The natives near Beagle Bay speak of a crab that is half a crab and half a eray-fish, but we were unfortunate in not securing one, although the natives spent some time endeavouring to procure one for our collection. There is a form of spider crab with long legs that can run with incredible speed, and we have watched native dogs endeavouring to catch them, with the aboriginals themselves enjoying the spectacle as much as we. The crabs live in holes which they make in the sand, and they apparently do not adopt a communistic system of living. Each crab has its individual home. They dodge here and there, working round, until they reach their own place, and one could almost imagine the crab breathing a sigh of relief, if a crab ever sighs, as the dog misses it by an eighth of an inch. “The old man of the sea,” or the sucker fish, known also as the pilot fish, is provided with an adhesive arrangement on the back of its head, and can also attach itself to the sides of a lugger. The strange arrangement on the back of the head permits the fish to be carried along in a natural posture, enabling it to observe its natural enemies, or the food supply of the fish it is attached to. There were probably 10 or 12 attached to our lugger, and they accompanied us some hundreds of miles, until the native boys we carried speared them as they sought the food we threw overboard at meal times. They are generally found with sharks, and act as a guide to the latter’s food supply, obtaining what is left over after the shark has finished. So powerful is the sucker that one placed on a man’s back will leave a red contusion. Though these be but few of the many strange forms of sea-life found along the North-West coast, yet had de Rougement made any reference to them, he would doubtless have been burnt at the stake by those hardy English fishermen, whose only conception of fish is that of the “fried” order, or the diminutive carp and , perch, # they journey many miles to catch.