PRINCE EDWARD GROUP. 



MARION ISLAND. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTES. 



For what is known of the natural history of this group, we are wholly indebted to the 

 Challenger Expedition. The vegetation of these islands, the Crozets, Kerguelen, and 

 Heard Islands, is essentially the same ; therefore it would be superfluous to analyse the 

 composition of their individual floras. Instead of this, a tabular view of the vascular 

 plants of all the islands is given in the Report on the Botany of Heard Island — the last 

 of the series (p. 24 4). 1 With the exception of Hymenophyllum tunbridgense, /3 ivilsoni, 

 and Aspidium mohrioides in Marion Island, and Asplenium obttisatum in the Crozets, all 

 the vascular plants, at least, that have been collected in Marion, the Crozets, and Heard 

 Islands, occur also in Kerguelen Island. In this place Mr Moseley's account of the vege- 

 tation, &c, of Marion Island, in his Notes by a Naturalist on the Challenger, pp. 163- 

 170, is repeated with some trifling alterations to bring it in harmony with the other part 

 of this work : — 



" Marion Island, which with the smaller island of Prince Edward makes up the Prince Edward 

 group, was sighted on the evening of December 25. The centre of Marion Island is in lat. 46° 52' 

 S., long. 37° 45' E., that of Prince Edward Island in lat. 46° 36' S., long. 37° 57' E., the city of 

 Lyons being in a nearly corresponding latitude in the northern hemisphere. 



" The islands are distant from the Crozets (which lie to the north-east of them, and are the 

 nearest land) 450 miles. From the African continent they are distant about 960 miles, the nearest 

 point being about Cape Recife at Algoa Bay. From Kerguelen's Land Marion Island is distant 

 about 1200 miles; from Lindsay and Bouvet Islands, about 1400 miles; from Tristan da Cunha and 

 Gough Islands, about 2150 miles; and, lastly, from the Falkland Islands and Fuegia (to which, in 

 common with all the other Antarctic islands hitherto examined, except the Campbell and Auckland 

 group, they are in their flora most nearly related) they are distant about 4500 geographical miles. 



" The islands lie, as do the Crozets and Kerguelen's Land, well within the course of the Antarctic 



1 Concerning the vegetation of Diego Alvariez or Gough Island, in about 40° 30' S. lat., and 10° W. long., 

 we know nothing beyond the statement published by Mr Moseley (Journ. Linn. Soc. Lond. xiv. p. 384), that 

 he was informed by a Tristan settler, who had lived for months in the island, that the same flowering plants 

 and tree (Phylica) grow there as in the Tristan da Cunha group, but that the ferns are different. 



Of the botany of the group of islands in about 54° S. lat., and 5° W. long., comprising Bouvet, Lindsay, 

 and Thompson, we have no knowledge whatever. 



