438 KEELING ISLAND. [CHAP. xx. 



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 moun- 

 tain, 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 was a beetle. A 

 small ant swarmed by thousands under the loose dry blocks of 

 coral, and was the only true insect which was abundant. 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. Charnisso has described t 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, includ- 

 ing 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 

 of coral rock on the outside, by its breadth, breaks the first violence 

 of the waves, which otherwise, in a day, would sweep away these 

 islets and all their productions. The ocean and the land seem here 

 struggling for mastery : although terra firma has obtained a foot- 

 ing, the denizens of the water think their claim at least equally 



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

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

 cies; Homoptera, two; Neuroptira, a Chrysopa ; Hymenoptera, two ants; 

 Lepidoptera nocturna, a Dio^sen, and a Pterophorus (?) ; Diptera, two 

 species. 



t Kotzebue's First Voyage, vol. iii. p. 222. 



