The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-09-26

but as 1t pays no tribute to the crab it multiplies much more ranidly than the booby, and were 1t not for the edible quality of the eggs and of the bird itself would soon dominate the is- lands of the Pacific. As it is Clipper ton is the home of thousands of them, and while they are not such prominent features of the landscape as the booby they form not inconsider- able part of that great swarm of birds seen constantly lowering over the is- land.
 There is still third family of birds on this island, larger and wilder than either of the ones mentioned. This is the frigate bird, or as it is better known among seafaring men, the sea eagle. It, too, nests here and breeds in countless thousands on the barren rocks of the atoll. Like booby and sea pigeon, 1t scorns the lurury of a soft nest and lays It's eggs on the bare rock, The young appear to thrive on this sort treatment. for they are early from the nest and care for themselves
 at an age when the. young booby is
 still helpless infant
 The frigate bird is no friend of the crab, and evidently the crab is well aware of the fact, for 1t never att tempts to interfere with the mother birds during the nesting. period. If the unwary crab should wander too close to the nest of the eagle 1t generally has cause to remember the incident, if it lives to remember at all, much longer than it remains in the mind of the bird. If 1t happens to be an espe- cially crab it stands good chance of forming part of the next meal of the eagle.
 But with all their queerness the birds of Clipperton Island are the least queer of the animated nature of the atoll The land crab, which literally infests the island, diabolical in appear ance and persistent in activity, is a source of continued wonder Though small in size it gives one an uncanny feeling to see this little red crutacean gazing on him with malignant stare, and causing him to feel as if some demon of the deep were watching him and waiting to drag him down to the depths and make a meal off his flesh. While the crabs are no larger than a mans hand, and a majority not half so large, they are in such confess numbers as to give one an idea of their ability to do any amount of devilish- ness. They infest the whole island, are into everything unprotected and will eat anything soft. To protect the stores from their ravages it is neces- sary to build special crabproof ware houses, covered with sheet iron or tin, through which they cannot cut their way.
 homes on the island there is nothing the crab will not try to eat. No green thing grows on this island except that which grows in the strangest garden in the world, described below. The crabs not only eat the green as soon as it makes its appearance above the ground, but go below the surface to seek out the seeds. They eat anything soft and many things that are hard. Pieces of wood are gnawed at until the yare reduced to splinters. Clothing shoes and leather belts, in night if left where the crabs can get at them.
 1t is this constant struggle of the crabs for existence that is responsible for strange garden. On Cllpperton Island there is no soil, notwithstand- ing the fact that certain shrewd Eng lishmen have made fortunes by talk from 1t the material necessary to en- rich other lands. When the Pacific Is- lands Company established 1t station on this lonely rim of rock it thought to save much hardship on the part of its employees and carried shipload of soil from the mainland for the purpose of making a garden. The loam was spread out in proper position and the seed planted Next morning the garden spot seemed to have turned brilliant red. It was alive with crabs, and with fin week not a vistige of seed or loam, remained. The crabs took it to a new delicacy and ate seeds and soil and began on the garden utensils.
 Determined not to be outwitted by the crabs the company tried again, but this time the garden was built on stilts, and the raised platform was protected from inroads of crabs by in- verted tin pans at the top of the sus- taining posts, in manner similar to that used by Missouri farmers to pro- tect their corn from rats. In this ele- vated garden the manager of the is land raised few vegetables, going to the garden by means of a short ladder, which he was compelled to remove as soon as used, for the crabs were as expert at ladder climbing as they were at eating vegetables. AS it rains every night on Clipperton Island there is never a lack of moisture for the gard en, and good crops are the rule.
 The crabs seem possessed of human intelligence in some things, and they have learned that a visit on the part of the manager to the garden means a feast for them, and when the garden is being titled there rs always a swarm of crabs on the ground below waiting for the weeds and surplus ve- getation that are thrown over. When the cook pays a visit to this aerial garden he is followed on his re- turn to the kitchen, and the crabs stand in circle about the door ready to feast on the refuse which they seem to know will come if they wait long enough.
 At the time of my visit to the island the half buried hulk of the eood British