[5] I Was Interested By Finding Here The Hollow Conical Pitfall Of The Lion-Ant, Or Some Other Insect; First

A fly fell down the treacherous slope and immediately disappeared; then came a large but unwary ant; its struggles to

Escape being very violent, those curious little jets of sand, described by Kirby and Spence (Entomol., vol. i. p. 425) as being flirted by the insect's tail, were promptly directed against the expected victim. But the ant enjoyed a better fate than the fly, and escaped the fatal jaws which lay concealed at the base of the conical hollow. This Australian pitfall was only about half the size of that made by the European lion-ant.

[6] Physical Description of New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, p. 354.

CHAPTER XX

KEELING ISLAND: - CORAL FORMATIONS

Keeling Island - Singular appearance - Scanty Flora - Transport of Seeds - Birds and Insects - Ebbing and flowing Springs - Fields of dead Coral - Stones transported in the roots of Trees - Great Crab - Stinging Corals - Coral eating Fish - Coral Formations - Lagoon Islands, or Atolls - Depth at which reef-building Corals can live - Vast Areas interspersed with low Coral Islands - Subsidence of their foundations - Barrier Reefs - Fringing Reefs - Conversion of Fringing Reefs into Barrier Reefs, and into Atolls - Evidence of changes in Level - Breaches in Barrier Reefs - Maldiva Atolls, their peculiar structure - Dead and submerged Reefs - Areas of subsidence and elevation - Distribution of Volcanoes - Subsidence slow, and vast in amount.

APRIL 1st. - We arrived in view of the Keeling or Cocos Islands, situated in the Indian Ocean, and about six hundred miles distant from the coast of Sumatra.

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