There are crabs and crawfish, eels and shrimps, prawns and varos, all hung up on strings.  There are oysters and maoao, alive and dripping.  The maoao is the turbo, a gastropod, a mysterious inhabitant of a twisted shell, who shuts the door to his home with a brightly-colored operculum, for all the world like half of a cuff-button.  One eats him raw or cooked or dried.  But he is not so odd as the varo one of the most delicious and expensive of Tahitian foods.  These sea centipedes, as the English call them in Tahiti, are a species of ibacus, and are from six to twelve inches long, and two wide.  They have legs or feelers all along their sides, like a pocket comb, a hideous head, and tail, and a generally repulsive appearance.  If one did not know they were excellent eating, and most harmless in their habits, one would be tempted to run or take to a tree at sight of them.  Their shell is a translucent yellow, with black markings.  The female has a red stripe down her back, and red eggs beneath her.  She is richer in flavor, and more deadly than the male to one who has a natural diathesis to poisoning by varos.  Many whites cannot eat them.  Some lose appetite at their looks, their likeness to a gigantic thousand-leg.  Others find that the varo rests uneasy within them, as though each claw or tooth of the comb grasped a vital part of their anatomy.  I think varos excellent when wrapped in hotu leaves, and grilled as a lobster.  I take the beastie in my fingers and suck out the meat.  Amateurs must keep their eyes shut during this operation.

Catching varos is tedious and requires skill.  They live in the sand of the beach under two or three feet of water.  One has to find their holes by wading and peering.  They are small at the top, but roomy below.  One cannot see these holes through ruffled water.  Once located, grapnels, or spools fitted with a dozen hooks, are lowered into them.  A pair inhabits the same den.  If the male is at home, he seizes the grapnel, and is raised and captured, and the female follows.  But if the female emerges first, it is a sure sign that the male is absent in search of food.  I have pondered as to this habit of the varo, and have tried to persuade me that the male, being a courteous shrimp,—­he is a kind of mantis-shrimp,—­combats the intruding hooks first in order to protect his loved one; but the grapnel is baited with fish, and though masculine pride would insist that chivalry urges varo homme to defend his domestic shrine, fishers for the tidbit say that he is after the bait, and holds to it so tightly that he sacrifices his life.  Nevertheless, the lady embraces the same opportunity to rise, and their deserted tenement is soon filled by the sands.

Trapping varos calls for patience and much dexterity.  The mere finding of the holes is possible only to natives trained from childhood.  Six varos make a good meal, with bread and wine, and they are most enjoyable hot—­also most indigestible.