308 CORAL AND ATOLLS 



down every quiet glade of coconut palms, with all the accus- 

 tomed air of settled residents. Yet of all these thousands not 

 one is born or bred in the islands, and not one is ever able to 

 start a permanent race of settlers :— for there is no open fresh 

 water anywhere in which they may pass their larval stages. 



They are quite alive to their responsibilities as pioneers, 

 and they do not merely spend their time in a butterfly fashion 

 during their somewhat short life of sunshine ; — on all sides 

 they may be seen making every attempt to carry on their 

 race. When rain falls heavily, and collects in puddles on the 

 asphalt tennis court of the cable-station, the puddles are at 

 once exploited as likely places for laying eggs, and numerous 

 females will be seen busily preparing for a new generation. 

 But half an hour of sunshine and all their efforts are vain, for 

 the puddles dry up as quickly as they came. 



Even salt water tempts them to lay their eggs, and the 

 females of T. Roseiibergii were to be seen daily depositing 

 useless eggs in the salt-water fish-pond on Pulu Tikus. 



This case gives some idea of the colossal waste of Nature's 

 methods of colonising. Considering the fact that the atoll is 

 the only dry land spot in all this part of the Indian Ocean, 

 and that it is only eight miles across, some notion may be 

 gained of the extraordinary numbers of these insects which are 

 journeying aimlessly to a certain death. Of all the thousands 

 that do happen to arrive in the atoll, not one can ever hope 

 to carry on its race — and their fate is as useless, and their 

 journey as purposeless, as that of those myriads which drift to 

 nothinQ: save a limitless sea. 



The case is a very interesting one, for it is usually assumed 

 that all colonists that set off from their home, and arrive in 

 distant spots, are blown by winds from their native shores ; — 

 but this is not the case. These dragonflies go to sea of their 

 own accord, they are not blown from shore, and in absolute 

 calms of long duration, Pantula fiavcsccns may be seen hawking 

 about over the sea twenty miles and more from the nearest 

 land. I have seen numbers of this species almost daily in a 

 Journey through dead calms all the way from Singapore to 



