One Of These Grows To A Very Large Size, But
From The Extremes Of Softness Of Its Wood, Is Useless; Another
Sort Affords Excellent Timber For Ship-Building.
Besides the
trees, the number of plants is exceedingly limited, and consists
of insignificant weeds.
In my collection, which includes,
I believe, nearly the perfect Flora, there are twenty
species, without reckoning a moss, lichen, and fungus. To
this number two trees must be added; one of which was not
in flower, and the other I only heard of. The latter is a
solitary tree of its kind, and grows near the beach, where,
without doubt, the one seed was thrown up by the waves. A
Guilandina also grows on only one of the islets. I do not
include in the above list the sugar-cane, banana, some other
vegetables, fruit-trees, and imported grasses. As the islands
consist entirely of coral, and at one time must have existed
as mere water-washed reefs, all their terrestrial productions
must have been transported here by the waves of the sea.
In accordance with this, the Florula has quite the character
of a refuge for the destitute: Professor Henslow informs
me that of the twenty species nineteen belong to different
genera, and these again to no less than sixteen families! [1]
In Holman's [2] Travels an account is given, on the authority
of Mr. A. S. Keating, who resided twelve months on these
islands, of the various seeds and other bodies which have
been known to have been washed on shore. "Seeds and
plants from Sumatra and Java have been driven up by the
surf on the windward side of the islands. Among them have
been found the Kimiri, native of Sumatra and the peninsula
of Malacca; the cocoa-nut of Balci, known by its shape and
size; the Dadass, which is planted by the Malays with the
pepper-vine, the latter intwining round its trunk, and
supporting itself by the prickles on its stem; the soap-tree;
the castor-oil plant; trunks of the sago palm; and various kinds
of seeds unknown to the Malays settled on the islands.
These are all supposed to have been driven by the N. W.
monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and thence to these
islands by the S. E. trade-wind. Large masses of Java teak
and Yellow wood have also been found, besides immense
trees of red and white cedar, and the blue gumwood of New
Holland, in a perfectly sound condition. All the hardy seeds,
such as creepers, retain their germinating power, but the
softer kinds, among which is the mangostin, are destroyed
in the passage. Fishing-canoes, apparently from Java, have
at times been washed on shore." It is interesting thus to
discover how numerous the seeds are, which, coming from
several countries, are drifted over the wide ocean. Professor
Henslow tells me, he believes that nearly all the plants
which I brought from these islands, are common littoral
species in the East Indian archipelago. From the direction,
however, of the winds and currents, it seems scarcely possible
that they could have come here in a direct line. If,
as suggested with much probability by Mr. Keating, they
were first carried towards the coast of New Holland, and
thence drifted back together with the productions of that
country, the seeds, before germinating, must have travelled
between 1800 and 2400 miles.
Chamisso, [3] when describing the Radack Archipelago, situated
in the western part of the Pacific, states that "the sea
brings to these islands the seeds and fruits of many trees,
most of which have yet not grown here. The greater part
of these seeds 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, that 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 Phillippensis), 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. [4] 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.
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