156 KEELING ISLAND. [chap. xx. 



a ship from the Mauritius, wrecked liere. These rats are con- 

 sidered by Mr. Waterhouse as identical with the English kind, 

 but they are smaller, and more brightly coloured. There are 

 no true land-birds ; for a snipe and a rail (Rallus Phillippensis), 

 though living entirely in the dry herbage, belong to the order of 

 Waders. Birds of this order are said to occur on several of the 

 small low islands in the Pacific. At Ascension, where there is 

 no land bird, a rail (Porphyrio simplex) was shot near the 

 summit of the mountain, and it was evidently a solitary straggler. 

 At Tristan d'Acunha, where, according to Carmichael, there are 

 only two land birds, there is a coot. From these facts I believe 

 that the waders, after the innumerable web-footed species, are 

 generally the first colonists of small isolated islands. I may add, 

 that whenever I noticed birds, not of oceanic species, very far 

 out at sea, they always belonged to this order ; and hence they 

 would naturally become the earliest colonists of any remote point 

 of land. 



Of reptiles I saw only one small lizard. Of insects I took 

 pains to collect every kind. Exclusive of spiders, which were 

 numerous, there were thirteen species.* Of these, one only Mas 

 a beetle. A small ant swarmed by thousands under the loose dry 

 blocks of coral, and was the only true insect which was abun- 

 dant. Although the productions of the land are thus scanty, if 

 we look to the waters of the surrounding sea, the number of 

 organic beings is indeed infinite. Chamisso has described f the 

 natural history of a lagoon-island in the Radack Archipelago ; 

 and it is remarkable how closely its inhabitants, in number and 

 kind, resemble those of Keeling Island. There is one lizard 

 and two waders, namely, a snipe and curlew. Of plants there 

 are nineteen species, including a fern ; and some of these are the 

 same with those growing here, though on a spot so immensely 

 remote, and in a different ocean. 



The long strips of land, forming the linear islets, have been 

 raised only to that height to which the surf can throw fragments 

 of coral, and the wind heap up calcareous sand. The solid flat 



* The thirteen species belong to the following orders : — In the Coleoptera, 

 a minute Elater ; Orthoptera, a Gryllus and a Blatta ; Hemiptera, one spe- 

 cies; Homoptera, two; Neuroptera, a Chrysopa; Hymenoptera, two ants: 

 Levidopiera nocturna, a Diopsca, and a Pterophorus (?) ; Diptera, two species. 



f Kotzcbue's First Voyage, vol. iii., p. 222. 



