BARBOUR: NOTES ON THE HERPETOLOGY OF JAMAICA. 281 



are more easily killed by emersion in salt water than many students in 

 the past have supposed. Slugs when in the act of crawling on twigs 

 drop off immediately when subjected to a slight spray of sea water. 

 Scharff (Joe. cit., p. 17) continues: "If we supposed, therefore, that a 

 slug had successfully reached the sea, transported on a tree-trunk, the 

 moisture would tend to lure it forth from its hiding-place under the bark, 

 whilst the mere spray would prove fatal to its existence." He adds that 

 species of snails and slugs which lead an underground existence would 

 be much less likely to get started on these sea voyages. The suggestion 

 advanced by Darwin that young snails just hatched might adhere to the 

 fleet of birds roosting on the ground and then be transported, seems im- 

 probable. Dr. Scharff in his " European Animals : Their Geological 

 History and Geographical Distribution" (New York, 1907) states that 

 in a letter Dr. Knud Andersen of Copenhagen has informed him that 

 he has examined the legs and wings of many thousands of migratory 

 birds, " that their legs were clean ; and no seeds or other objects were 

 found adhering to their feathers, beaks or feet. It has also been proved 

 that birds migrate on empty stomachs." 



There is also good authority for the statement that amphibians and 

 earthworms very rarely or never occur on the two shores of a stretch of 

 sea except when there is evidence showing the former existence of a land 

 connection. 



To quote again from Scharff {Joe. cit., p. 18-20) : "The formerly prev- 

 alent belief of the permanence of ocean basins has been shaken by the 

 utterances of some of the greatest geologists of our day, whilst many 

 positively assert that what is now deep sea of more than 1000 fathoms 

 was dry land within comparatively recent geological epochs. Thus the 

 Azores are classed by Darwin and Wallace among the oceanic islands — 

 that is to say, among such as have received their fauna and flora by 

 flotsam and jetsam. But Professor Neumayr believes, on geological 

 grounds, that the Old and New Worlds were connected by a land-bridge 

 during Tertiary times right across the Atlantic, and that the Canary 

 Islands, Madeira, and Azores . . . are the last remnants of this continent. 

 This meets with the entire approbation of Dr. von Ihering, who has 

 recently re-investigated the subject from a faunistic point of view. . . . 

 Take another instance of one of Wallace's most typical oceanic islands, 

 the Galapagos Group. Their fauna and flora have recently been most 

 thoroughly re-explored by an American expedition, the result of which, 

 according to Dr. Eaur, goes to show that these islands must have formed 

 part of the mainland of South America at no distant date. The fauna 



