And even the cocoa-nut husk he does not waste; for he lives in deep burrows which he makes like a rabbit; and being a luxurious crab, and liking to sleep soft in spite of his hard shell, he lines them with a quantity of cocoa-nut fibre, picked out clean and fine, just as if he was going to make cocoa-nut matting of it.

And being also a clean crab, as I hope you are a clean little boy, he goes down to the sea every night to have his bath and moisten his gills, and so lives happy all his days, and gets so fat in his old age that he carries about his body nearly a quart of pure oil.
That is the history of the cocoa-nut crab.

And if any one tells me that that crab acts only on what is called "instinct"; and does not think and reason, just as you and I think and reason, though of course not in words as you and I do: then I shall be inclined to say that that person does not think nor reason either.
Then were there many coral-reefs in Britain in old times?
Yes, many and many, again and again; some whole ages older than this, a bit of which you see, and some again whole ages newer.

But look: then judge for yourself.

Look at this geological map.