764 ZOOLOGY OF NEW CALEDONIA, 



nickel ore, and reaches the palaeozoic formation succeeding them to 

 the northward. The former are bleak and barren, with desolate 

 uplands of bare red soil, patches of scanty fern, and thin brush- 

 wood, which, seen from the coasting steamer, suggest by their 

 lifelessness the polar rather than the tropic zone. The latter rise 

 wall-like fi'om the sea, towering in Mt. Panic, the culminating peak 

 of the island, to a height of about 5,400 feet. The crest of the 

 range is clothed with dense jungle, its sides seamed with white 

 leaping cataracts, and at its feet lie populous native villages 

 hidden in cocoa-nut palm groves, the taro gardens of the kanakas, 

 and the coffee plantations of the colonists. 



"Twenty miles north of Mt. Panic, where the altitude of the 

 ■coast range has diminished, lies the little settlement of Oubatche. 

 Here, by the kind assistance of my hosts, Messrs. A. O. and J. 

 Henry, I was enabled to collect the fresh-water fishes enumerated 

 below. Our method was simply to block a small rivulet which 

 flowed through an abandoned native garden in an alluvial flat 

 near the sea, and bale a pool dry with buckets. As the water 

 drained away the fish fell easy victims to the active native lads 

 and were then transferred to my jar of formal. The small series 

 of fish obtained did not of course exhaust the fauna of the 

 neighbourhood. I saw several other kinds in the shallow streams 

 which I was unable to catch, and I should expect that the 

 mountain pools at higher levels, from two to four thousand feet, 

 would yield different, perhaps peculiar species. 



" On our arrival I observed two kinds of Halobates skimmina; 

 over the surface of the pool, but they evaded my efforts to secure 

 them. The molluscan tenants of the pool were Isadora nasnta 

 and Succiiiea movtrouzieri among the weeds, Neritina vai-ieyata, 

 N. canalis, N. bruguieri, N. petiti, and Navicella hougainvillei 

 wei'e clinging to the rocks, and when the water fell Mel.ania 

 artharii was seen crawling in the mud. Among Crustacea, 

 PaJxemon vagus was plentiful, and a fresh-water crab, Hyinenosoma 

 pilosa, was caught. A spider, Dolomeiles sp., was left among the 

 water plants when the water subsided." 



