INSECTS TIIK FIRST COLONISTS OF ISLANDS. 13 



booby lays her eggs on the bare rock ; but the tern 

 makes a very simple nest with seaweed. By the 

 side of many of these nests a small flying-fish was 

 placed; which, I suppose, had been brought by the 

 male bird for its partner. It was amusing to watch 

 how quickly a large and active crab (Graspus), 

 which inhabits the crevices of the rock, stole the 

 fish from the side of the nest, as soon as we had dis- 

 turbed the parent birds. Sir W. Symonds, one of 

 the few persons who have landed here, informs me 

 that he saw the crabs dragging even the young birds 

 out of their nests, and devouring them. Not a sin- 

 gle plant, not even a lichen, grows on this islet; 

 yet it is inhabited by several insects and spiders. 

 The following list completes, I believe, the terres- 

 trial fauna : a fly (Olfersia) living on the booby, and 

 a tick which must have come here as a parasite on 

 the birds ; a small brown moth, belonging to a ge- 

 nus that feeds on feathers ; a beetle (Q,uedius), and 

 a woodlouse froin beneath the dung ; and lastly, 

 numerous spiders, which I suppose prey on these 

 small attendants and scavengers of the waterfowl. 

 The often-repeated description of the stately palm 

 and other noble tropical plants, then birds, and lastly 

 man, taking possession of the coral islets as soon as 

 formed, in the Pacific, is probably not quite cor- 

 rect ; I fear it destroys the poetry of this story, that 

 feather and dirt-feeding and parasitic insects and 

 spiders should be the first inhabitants of newly- 

 formed oceanic land. 



The smallest rock in the tropical seas, by giving 

 a foundation for the growth of innumerable kinds 

 of seaweed and compound animals, supports like- 

 wise a large number of fish. The sharks and the 

 seamen in the boats maintained a constant struggle 

 which should secure the greater share of the prey 

 caught by tlie fishing-lines. T have heard that a 



