4 BULLETIN : MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



Montreal to Yancoiiver_, and for despatching to Fiji a number of cases 

 ■which could not be shipped via Australia. I am also under great obli- 

 gations to Admiral Sir W. J. L. "Wharton, R. N., and to Captain W. U. 

 Moore, R. X., for their unceasing interest and advice while planning my 

 trip to Fiji. 



Thanks to the admirable charts of Fiji, which owe their origin to the 

 surveys of the United States Exploring Expedition under Wilkes, and 

 their elaboration in great detail by the subsequent British surveys of 

 Captain Denham and Lieutenants Moore and Richards, it was possible 

 to cover a great deal of ground by picking out from the charts the inter- 

 esting and critical points for examination, and thus to make a very rapid 

 yet fairly accurate survey of the coral reefs. The accuracy of the Ad- 

 miralty Charts enabled us to enter safely into the lagoons, and to select 

 our anchorages with confidence. The reproduction here of the Fiji 

 charts, together with photographs of the most characteristic views, will 

 better serve to give a faithful picture of the islands and reefs of Fiji 

 than lengthy descriptions, and 1 hope in the discussion of the general 

 questions to be able to illustrate my arguments either by references to 

 the charts or to the photographs of a group of islands of which Dana 

 says, " The facts from the Feejee Archipelago illustrate the subject 

 well."^ The larger scale charts of the Admiralty, such as those of 

 Kandavu (A. C. 167), of the south and east coasts of Viti Levu (A. C. 

 167, 845, 905), of Vatu i ra Channel (A. C. 379), of ]\Iakongai and 

 Wakaya (A. C. 1250), of Suva (A. C. 1757), of Levuka Harbor (A. C. 

 1244), of Ovalau (A. C. 1249), of such islands as Nairai (A. C. 741), of 

 Moala (A. C. 1252), of Ngau (A. C. 1251), and of Totoya (A. C. 1248), 

 contain an inexhaustible fund of information regarding coral reefs, and 

 would serve as an invaluable basis for a minute zoological and geological 

 survey of any island group such as I attempted for the Tortugas.^ 



1 Dana, Corals and Coral Islands, p. 262. 



2 Mem. Am. Acad., Vol. XI. p. 107 (1883). 



Cambridge, September 1, 1898. 



Note. — Owing to my absence from Cambridge and to the delay in 

 preparing the Plates for this volume its publication has been delayed 

 ( until May, 1899. 



