IN THE COCOS-KEELING ISLANDS. 31 



Serica) and Rutelidm (genus Anomala), whose presence, I am 

 told, had been noted in abundance for only a few years previous 

 to my visit. I saw them frequenting almost every open flower, 

 towards which they were performing the kind fertilising office 

 usually done by bees, whose place they seemed to take. Of 

 Orthoptera, besides the ubiquitous cockroach {Blatta orientalis), 

 there were a few Acrididae, and the common locust, which 

 was found in increased numbers after the cyclone. The 

 Hemiptera were represented by several species. 



Of Neuroptera, white ants had spread their baneful hordes to 

 most of the islands ; while Chrysopa innotata and dragon-flies were 

 very plentiful. Immediately after the cyclone the surface of the 

 water was observed to be densely strewn with broken bodies of 

 the latter, as if, in its course, the wind had encountered a cloud 

 of them, and scattered their mangled remains as it travelled. 

 I did not succeed in collecting any true Hymenoptera, but ants 

 were abundant ; a minute Fire-ant (Oamponotus), the common 

 Javan long-legged venomless species, and several black sorts 

 had become domiciled on the islands. Every trading vessel in 

 the tropics has its formicine fauna, and cannot help acting as a 

 transporter of all sorts of ants from one region of it to another. 

 Lepidoptera had perhaps increased more than any other family. 

 The Biopcea, so common in Java among the sensitive Mimosa, 

 and a minute Plume-moth sheltering among the red-wood (Pern- 

 phis acidula), and the Scsevola, were perhaps the most common ; 

 the large Atlas-moth had become a settled resident here, as 

 well as several moderately large diurnal species with a habit 

 of pitching on the warm, bare ground and frequenting the 

 Guetarda and the Asclepias cuirassavica. Among several sorts 

 of flies, an Asilus, much like the large carnivorous fly common 

 in South Europe, was most conspicuous. 



The Mammalian fauna of the Keelings was an entirely 

 introduced one. A herd of deer on Horsburgh Island, was in- 

 teresting as being a cross between the Javan Eusa (Gervus hip- 

 pelaphus) and the darker Sumatran species {Gervus equinus). 

 Pigs ran semi-wild, and throve remarkably well on the broken 

 scraps of cocoa-nuts everywhere lying about in the woods. 

 Australian sheep, which fed on the PortuJaca oleracea, on 

 a species of grass, and on the tubers of an aroid which they 

 scraped up, did not seem to suffer much from the novel maritime 



