PART IV 



THE FLORA AND FAUNA OF THE 

 GROUP 



CHAPTER XXV 



THE METHODS OF NATURAL COLONISATION 



The plants and animals which have succeeded is gaining a 

 foothold upon the islands are comparatively few in number, 

 and for the most part the living things of the land are 

 inconspicuous creatures, with but little of that brightness of 

 colouring or luxuriance of growth which one is apt to associate 

 with Nature in the tropics. A great interest, however, attaches 

 itself to the population of a coral atoll, and every living thing, 

 although it may not be attractive to the eye, possesses an 

 added importance from the fact that it has effected a landing, 

 and made a home, in so distant a spot. For this reason I have 

 paid an especial attention to the flora and fauna, and the lists 

 which are added as an appendix to this chapter may be con- 

 sidered as fairly complete for most of the orders. 



It is desirable that such a place as Cocos-Keeling should 

 possess a record of the state of its flora and fauna at this 

 time, for, with the increased intercourse with the outer world, 

 changes are always liable to take place ; new forms may be 

 introduced and old ones exterminated with great rapidity. 



This has already happened in the case of Christmas Island, 

 and were it not for the careful recording of the state of the 

 living things by Dr. C. W. Andrews in 1897, we should now 

 be in ignorance of the extraordinary changes that have taken 



place so suddenly in the fauna, and we should lack the 



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