xxiv FAUNA HAVVAIIENSIS 



of Myrsine were blackened and killed by the cold. In the denser forest at a higher 

 elevation no such effect was visible, and no signs of frost were seen there on these 

 days. When one is camping in the rain-belt and in search of creatures, for successfully 

 collecting which a fair amount of fine weather is essential, it is very tantalizing to see 

 the lowlands blazing in the sunshine, while the forest-belt day after day is wrapped in 

 fog and rain. 



General aspect of the Flora and Fauna. 



The fauna of the islands is necessarily so intimately connected with the peculiarities 

 of the flora, while the peculiarities of the latter are in like manner sometimes evidently 

 connected with the remarkable characters of the fauna, that some consideration of the 

 vegetation of the islands is necessary. Every student of the natural history of the 

 islands is much indebted to the late Dr W. F. Hillebrand, whose "Flora of the Hawaiian 

 Islands" has proved a most valuable work. In some introductory remarks, which he did 

 not live to complete, he cites 860 species of Phanerogams and Vascular Cryptogams as 

 natural immigrants or as peculiar to the islands, after deducting those introduced by 

 man since and before the discovery of the islands by foreigners. Of the 860 species 

 653 are endemic (or 75"9 per cent.) and 250 of the species belong to 40 endemic genera. 

 Of Phanerogamous plants 81 "4 per cent, are endemic, of Dicotyledinous 85'6. Since 

 Hillebrand's work, as is natural, additional species have been discovered from time to 

 time and some changes have been made in the number of the genera that are endemic, 

 but until the completion of the study of the flora by botanists of to-day the above 

 figures may be accepted. From my own observations I have reckoned that the 

 endemic plants, given as 653 by Hillebrand, are probably not more than two-thirds 

 of those that exist. This reckoning is made from the considerable number of species, 

 not included in Hillebrand, that I have casually observed, when investigating the fauna, 

 and on the consideration that the systematic botanist would generally speaking adopt 

 Hillebrand's views as to specific characters. It is clear that the additions to the list 

 of endemic plants will be mainly in an increase of species allied to those already known, 

 rather than in the discovery of striking new forms. In other words the general 

 features of the flora are adequately known. 



Owing to the mountainous character of the islands, with great differences in 

 rainfall and temperature at different altitudes, the flora varies very greatly at different 

 heights on the mountains. 



Littoral plants are very poorly represented, mostly by natural immigrants of wide 

 distribution elsewhere. Many of these have fruits or seeds that float for long periods, 

 and have no doubt reached the islands on ocean currents. A few only are endemic, 

 e.g. the parasitic dodder i^Heliotropiuni anonialuvi) and species of the Composite genus 

 Lipochaela. The littoral insect fauna (excluding foreign forms) is likewise poor, and 



