400 A ZOOGEOGRAPHIC SCHEME FOR THE MID-PACIFIC, 



If subsidence had continued to the extent of lowerins the 

 whole group beneath the sea and drowning the indigenous terres- 

 trial fauna, it is necessary to note that though on emergence the 

 land would liave acquired by drift a new fauna, yet that fauna 

 would be disharmonic, and though geologists might still count it 

 as continental by reason of its position on a continental platform, 

 biologists on the other hand would class it as oceanic from the 

 nature of its fauna and flora. 



As the result of a geological reconnaissance in Fiji, Prof. Sollas 

 reckons this and the Hawaiian Group in the latter category, as 

 clusters of volcanic cones which, like Stromboli and Vulcano, rise 

 from the depths of the sea, thus opposing them to true continental 

 islands like New Caledonia and New Zealand.* 



Some proof will now be advanced that this latter is an untenable 

 position, and that Fiji has relics of an ancient and strictly con- 

 tinental fauna. The first writer to touch on the question seems 

 to have been A. A. (lould, who in 1851 remarked : — "But if we 

 may draw evidence from the land shells, the Samoan and Friendly 

 Islands are more intimately related to the Society Islands, though 

 at a much greater distance, than to the Feejee Islands. 

 Indeed, judging from the land shells, the Feejees are more nearly 

 allied to the islands to the westward, such as the New Hebrides, 

 than to the Friendly Islands on the east, though so much 

 nearer."! 



In 1892, I urged that : — " Eastwards of Fiji, the molluscan 

 fauna indicates the abrupt termination of the Melanesian Plateau. 

 Between the Samoas and Fijis a sounding of 2,600 fathoms has 

 been obtained. Significant of this is the absence of Placostijlus 

 from Savaii, Upolu, or Tutuila. The Samoan Islands appear as 

 well fitted as the Fijian to nourish an extensive series of Placos- 

 tylus. They are lar-ge, densely wooded, with a warm, moist, and 

 equable climate. The distance from their western neighbours is 



* Sollas— Natural Science, xiv. 1899, p. 17. 

 t Gould— United States Expl. Exped. xii. 1851, MoUusca, p. xiv. 



