BY CHARLES HEDLEY. 



407 



The average of Garrett's tables may be taken to roughly express 

 the distribution of the fauna of this region generally. 



This I would show diagrammatic ally by the descending line in 

 the following figure : 



South America. 



Tahiti. 



Funafuti Atoll. 



Samoan Group 



From New Guinea as a 

 starting point on the east 

 the fauna declines slightly 

 to Fiji. Leaving here the 

 continental area, an abrupt 

 fall occurs indicati\'e of 

 numerous feeble swimmers 

 unable to cross deep water. 

 Then through the nearer 

 oceanic islands of Samoa, 

 tlie fauna is by degrees 

 sifted into sti'ong and 

 stronger swimmers. A 

 small and sudden elevation 

 occurs at Tahiti, and re- 

 lates to the antiquity of 

 that refuge for ocean waifs. 

 Past Tahiti the life line 

 slowly lowers till a mini- 

 mum is reached at the 

 point of furthest western 

 intrusion of American life. 



Though zoologists seem 

 undecided on the question, 



botanists appear to be resolved that the flora of the Central Pacific 

 Archipelagoes reached them as over sea drift. W. B. Hemsley 

 writes: "For the purposes of the 'Botany' of the Challenger Expedi- 

 tion and ever since the publication of that work, I have collected all 

 the data coming under mj notice bearing on the dispersal of plants 

 to considerable distances by wind, water, birds or other creatures 



Fiji Is. 



Solomon Is 



Papua. 



