BY CHARLES HEDLEY. 409 



landed on the northern coast of the island. . . . But another 

 native fishing on the reef, who had some experience in the Arctic 

 regions, happened also to see this marine animal, and recognised 

 it as a fur seal."* 



The terrestrial reptilian fauna is represented on Funafuti by- 

 four Lacertilians. Of one of them. Dr. Baur remarks — "The 

 next species, Gehyra oceanica, Lesson, reaches from the Moluccas 

 eastwards to the Cook Islands (Rarotonga), being found on the 

 Admiralty, Solomon, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa Islands, Savage 

 Island and Lord Howe Island. . . . This distribution can 

 onlv be explained by a former Indo-Pacific continent extending 

 from Malaysia to the west coast of America.'"! A little local 

 knowledge of the region on which he wrote might have saved 

 Baur from drawing so tremendous a deduction from so simple a 

 fact. Observation on the spot enables C. M. Woodford t to thus 

 easily explain the matter, without invoking a Jurassic Continent. 

 " It is the rule rather than the exception for one or more lizards 

 to be unwilling passengers when one of the large native canoes is 

 at any time put into the water . . . their presence there- 

 fore, even upon remote islands, presents little difficulty." 



The Green Turtle occurs at Funafuti, and may, I believe, be 

 traced to the uttermost limits of Polynesia. Other members of 

 this group of powerful swimmers are widely spread in the South 

 Seas. Gill says — "Several species of Turtle — Loggerhead, Hawks- 

 bill, Green Turtle, etc. — are very plentiful on Rakaanga in the 

 breeding season. "§ 



Crocodiles do not, to my knowledge, intrude further into the 

 South Pacific than the Solomons, though their appearance in the 

 Santa Cruz and New Hebrides would not be surprising. The 

 ascription of them to Fiji by Boulenger|| is contradicted by local 

 observers. Mariner has given a vivid account of a stray crocodile 



* Gill— Jottings from the Pacific, 1885, p. 125. 



t Baur, loc. cit. p. 880. 



J Woodford — Geogr. Journal, vi. 1895, p. 349. 



§ Gill— Jottings from the Pacific, 1885, p. 128. 



f Boulenger — Cat. Chelonians and Crocodiles, Brit. Mus. 1889, p. 285 



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