EVIDENCES FROM GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION 171 



From a merely pecuniary point of view the abolition of these pri- 

 meval forests has proved an irreparable loss; but from a scientific 

 point of view the loss is incalculable. These forests served to harbour 

 countless forms of life, which extended at least from the Miocene age, 

 and which, having found there an ocean refuge, survived as the last 

 remnants of a remote geological epoch. In those days, as Mr. Wallace 

 observes, St. Helena must have formed a kind of natural museum or 

 vivarium of archaic species of all classes, the interest of which we can 

 now only surmise from the few remnants of those remnants, which are 

 still left among the more inaccessible portions of the mountain peaks 

 and crater edges. These remnants of remnants are as follows: 



There is a total absence of all indigenous mammals, reptiles, 

 fresh-water fish, and true land-birds. There is, however, a species of 

 plover, allied to one in South Africa; but it is specifically distinct, and 

 therefore peculiar to the island. The insect fife, on the other hand, 

 is abundant. Of beetles, no less than 129 species are believed to be 

 aboriginal, and, with one single exception, the whole number are 

 peculiar to the island. "But in addition to this large amount of 

 specific peculiarity (perhaps unequalled anywhere else in the world) 

 the beetles of this island are remarkable for their generic isolation, and 

 for the altogether exceptional proportion in which the great divisions of 

 the order are represented. The species belong to 39 genera, of which 

 no less than 25 are peculiar to the island; and many of these are such 

 isolated forms that it is impossible to find their allies in any particular 

 country" [Wallace]. More than two-thirds of all the species belong 

 to one group of weevils — a circumstance which serves to explain the 

 great wealth of beetle-population, the weevils being beetles which live 

 in wood, and St. Helena having been originally a densely wooded 

 island. This circumstance is also in accordance with the view that the 

 peculiar insect fauna has been in large part evolved from ancestors 

 which reached the island by means of floating timber; for, of course, 

 no explanation can be suggested why special creation of this highly 

 peculiar insect fauna should have run so disproportionately into the 

 production of weevils. About two-thirds of the whole number of 

 beetles, or over 80 species, show no close affinity with any existing 

 insects, while the remaining third have some relations, though often 

 very remote, with European and African forms. That this high 

 degree of peculiarity is due to high antiquity is further indicated, 

 according to our theory, by the large number of species which some of 

 the types comprise. Thus, the 54 species of Cossonidae may be 



