391 



A ZOOGEOGRAPHIC SCHEME FOR THE MID-PACIEia 

 By Charles Hedlev, F.L.S. 



Three years ago it was my fortune to be attached as naturalist 

 to the Royal Society Coral Boring Expedition, which operated on 

 Funafuti, an atoll of the Ellice Group in the South Central 

 Pacific. Previous to the arrival of this expedition the flora and 

 fauna recorded in scientific literature from Funafuti amounted 

 only to two plants, Suriana marithyia and Rhizophora mucronata* 

 and seven snails, Endodonta modiceUa, Stenogyra gracilis, Vertigo 

 pediculus, Tornatellina conica, Truncatella valida, Omphalotropis 

 zehriolata and Assiminea 7iitida.'\ 



One of the results of the expedition has been to identify and 

 record a fauna of nearly nine hundred species. Of these one- 

 sixth were described as new to science. Classified by sub- 

 kingdoms, this fauna is composed of 2 Mammals, 15 Birds, 

 5 Reptiles, 73 Fishes, 2 Enteropneusts, 87 Crustaceans, 27 Arachnids, 

 5 Myriopods, 42 Insects, 440 Molluscs, 1 Brachiopod, 28 Echino- 

 derms, 5 Annelids, 12 Gephyrean worms, 16 Sponges, 8 Hydrozoa, 

 2 Scyphozoa and 1 20 Actinozoa. I 



No other island of the Central Pacific has yet been so fully 

 surveyed from a zoological standpoint. Having gained so much 

 fresh information, it seems a suitable opportunity to pause and 

 reflect what light it may throw on the distribution of life in this 



region. 



Controversy has long raged around the geology of coral atolls. 

 The scanty information possessed by science on their history and 



* Botting Hemsley— Chall. Report. Botany i. Pt. iv. pp. 131, 237. 

 t Mousson — Journ. de Conch, xxi. 1873, p. 107. 

 X Hedley — The Atoll of Funafuti ; Memoirs iii. Australian Museum,. 

 1899, pp. 513-535. 



