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
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