The sealers call them whale-food. Whether whales feed on
them I do not know; but terns, cormorants, and immense herds of
great unwieldy seals derive, on some parts of the coast, their
chief sustenance from these swimming crabs. Seamen invariably
attribute the discoloration of the water to spawn; but I found this
to be the case only on one occasion. At the distance of several
leagues from the Archipelago of the Galapagos, the ship sailed
through three strips of a dark yellowish, or mud-like water; these
strips were some miles long, but only a few yards wide, and they
were separated from the surrounding water by a sinuous yet distinct
margin. The colour was caused by little gelatinous balls, about the
fifth of an inch in diameter, in which numerous minute spherical
ovules were embedded: they were of two distinct kinds, one being of
a reddish colour and of a different shape from the other. I cannot
form a conjecture as to what two kinds of animals these belonged.
Captain Colnett remarks that this appearance is very common among
the Galapagos Islands, and that the direction of the bands
indicates that of the currents; in the described case, however, the
line was caused by the wind.
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