312 CORAL AND ATOLLS 



An extended series of such observations would enor- 

 mously amplify this list, and it would give us some idea of the 

 resources of Nature in her distribution of potential colonists. 



Of the orders which have probably arrived by flying to the 

 atoll Lepidoptera is by far the best represented, and no less 

 than thirty-three species of butterflies and moths have made 

 their home in the islands. Three species of winged Hymenop- 

 tera, and eleven of Diptera, have also become settled, and 

 probably most were wind-borne. 



The four species of Neuroptera, and several of the Orthop- 

 tera have also followed the same route. 



Besides the insect fauna, other and higher orders of 

 animals have come to the atoll by flying. 



Of the mammals only the bats may use this route, and 

 the Pipistrell peculiar to Christmas Island has found its way 

 to the Cocos-Keeling atoll, but it has never become an estab- 

 lished resident. Forbes has reported that the large fruit- 

 eating bats have been blown to the atoll — also probably 

 from Christmas Island — but no memory of their occurrence 

 remains, so far as I could ascertain. It is quite likely 

 that these large creatures should come as colonists, for 

 they commonly make journeys to sea among the Malayan 

 Islands, and across the Sunda and the Bali Straits they flap 

 every evening of their lives as they pass to their feeding- 

 grounds. It is strange that, if these bats have ever come into 

 the islands in any numbers, they have not become settled ; 

 but the supply of wild fruit is perhaps too limited, for the 

 Papaia is practically the only fruit that grows outside the 

 limits of the gardens, and its supply is very precarious, and 

 its season is very short. Yet it would not be surprising to 

 learn that these powerful fliers cross the sea from Christmas 

 Island, or from Java, and live upon the bananas and saohs 

 cultivated in the gardens of Cocos. 



There is practically only one resident species of land 

 bird that has not been introduced by man, and this is the 

 Philippine land-rail, whose apparently feeble powers of flight 

 make its advent all the more remarkable. It is difficult even 



