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BIRDS—REP TILES 
485 
appear to have not yet lost the capability of growing.” It is 
also said that palms and bamboos from somewhere in the torrid 
zone, and trunks of northern firs, are washed on shore ; these 
firs must have come from an immense distance. These facts 
are highly interesting. It cannot be doubted that, if there 
were land-birds to pick up the seeds when first cast on shore, 
and a soil better adapted for their growth than the loose blocks 
of coral, the most isolated of the lagoon islands would in time 
possess a far more abundant Flora than they now have. 
The list of land animals is even poorer than that of the 
plants. Some of the islets are inhabited by rats, which were 
brought in a ship from the Mauritius, wrecked here. These rats 
are considered by Mr. Waterhouse as identical with the English 
kind, but they are smaller, and more brightly coloured. There 
are no true land birds ; for a snipe and a rail (Rallus Philippensis), 
though 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 mountain, 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. 1 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. Chamisso has 
1 The thirteen species belong to the following orders :—In the Coleoptera , a 
minute Elater ; Orthoptera, a Gryllus and a Blatta; Hemiptera, one species ; 
Homoptera, two ; Nmroptera, a Chrysopa ; Hymenoptera , two ants ; Lepidoptera 
nocturna , a Diopsea, and a Pterophorus (?); Diptera , two species. 
