274 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



Hall and Dickerson; also visiting the nearby island of Malapaina, 

 one of the Three Sisters Group, and staying there with Mr. Ireland, 

 a young Australian engaged in clearing the forests for a new planta- 

 tion. At Pamua, on the mainland of San Cristoval, I lived with the 

 Rev. Mr. Nind, at the school maintained there b^^ the Melanesian 

 Mission. Their steamer, the Southern Cross called and through the 

 •courtesy of the Rev. Mr. Wood, Bishop of Melanesia, I received a 

 passage to Wainoni.Bay. Here the two French priest-missionaries, 

 Fathers Moreau and Babbiau, cared for me. For their great kindness, 

 especially when stricken with fever, I am deeply grateful. 



Mr. Harry Jacobsen, a planter and trader, took me from Wainoni 

 Ray to Star Harbor, his station at the extreme eastern end of the 

 island, and made numerous trips with me along the coast and to the 

 neighboring island of Santa Anna, and afterw^ards up the coast to 

 Keri Keri, where I met Captain F. M. Campbell, Director of 

 native constabulary, and returned to Tulagi with him. Then Mr. 

 Abbott, Government Labor Agent, invited me to accompany him on 

 his launch to the Russell Islands. In New Georgia I lived with Mr. 

 Norman Wheatley, Nestor of South Sea traders, travelled about the 

 beautiful, though gruesomely historic, Rubiana Lagoon with him 

 and also stopped at Rendova for a few days with Mr. Palmer. 



Toward the end of my stay, I collected for three weeks at Fulakora 

 on the western end of Ysabel, living at the plantation of Mr. Charles 

 Bignell, a gentleman who spent much time collecting with me and 

 after my departure sent me a considerable number of interesting 

 species. 



To all of these gentlemen and to others, I am greatly indebted for 

 making my stay in the Solomons not only safe and successful, but 

 immensely enjoyable. Without their aid I could have done compara- 

 tively little collecting. 



The greater part of the country is heavily wooded and, as might be 

 ■expected, a large proportion of the species are arboreal. The char- 

 acter of the fauna changes markedly when the forest is cleared and in 

 the plantations one is impressed by the scarcity of endemic forms, 

 which have been supplanted by introduced species. Every log or 

 board on the ground shelters formicaries of tropicopolitan ants, chiefly 

 Plagiolcpis longipes and Prenolcpis longicomis. A few Oriental species, 

 as Oecophylla smaracjdina and Technomyrmex albipcs, are apparently 

 able to hold their own and Camponotiis reiicuUdus bedoti is not uncom- 

 mon in cleared land, but most of the native species are doomed as 



