1 68 CHAPTER II 



The triangle traffic, England-Newfoundland-Iberian Peninsula-England, de- 

 scribed above (p. 156) may also have resulted in the introduction of plants and 

 animals' with ships from southern Europe returning to England in ballast. Mr. 

 G. H. Ashe, Colyton, Devon, told me that he suggested the Weevil Sitona 

 gemellatus Gyll., restricted on the British Isles to southern Devon where it feeds 

 on Ononis arvensis, to have been introduced in that way. Can this possibly be 

 applied to the occurrence of another southern Weevil, Otiorrhynchus auropunctatus 

 Gyll., in Ireland?^ It would be wise not to neglect this point of view altogether, 

 when defining the so-called "Lusitanian element" of the British fauna and flora. 



Application to other parts of North America 



The conditions of trade and the use of ballast may have developed in a similar 

 way in other parts of the Maritime Provinces of Canada and especially in Nova 

 Scotia, the history of which in many points is similar to that of Newfoundland. 

 The permanent colonization of Nova Scotia was started in the 1630's, in the be- 

 ginning mainly by the French. The English did not become predominant until more 

 than a century later and the last French colony, Louisburg on Cape Breton Island, 

 was surrendered in 1758. The first settlement at Halifax (British) took place in 



1749- 



Nova Scotia was frequented by British vessels of very much the same pro- 

 venience as Newfoundland, originating from the southwest of England. For 

 instance, as Mr. Mathews informed me, there was periodically an intense but 

 publicly underestimated traffic between Poole and Nova Scotia. 



In connection with the discovery of the European weevil Barynotus sqiiamosus 

 Germ, (schonherri Zett.), Harrington (1891, p. 22) mentions the ballast heaps at 

 Sidney, Cape Breton Island, "formed by vessels discharging their ballast of stone, 

 earth, etc., before loading coal, and many species of introduced plants are found 

 on, or about them." The ground-beetle Carabus granulatus hibernicus Lth., re- 

 stricted in North America to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, has no doubt 

 arrived with ballast taken in Ireland. This and Bembidion properans Steph. are 

 the only European introductions among Carabid beetles in Nova Scotia, unknown 

 in Newfoundland (table 2). Among Weevils (Curculionids) the same applies to 

 Barynotus moerens F., Otiorrhynchus scaber L., Tropiphorus obtusus Bonsd. and 

 tomentosus Mrsh., and Tychius picirostris F. 



^ Carpenter (1895, p. 215) writes about Otiorrhynchus auropunctatus: "It is certainly 

 remarkable that so comparatively large an insect should have been overlooked by the older 

 naturalists; not a specimen is to be found in the collection of that prince of Irish entomolo- 

 gists, the late A. H. Haliday." The species is not parthenogenetic; the late Mr. E. O'Mahony 

 informed me that he had seen mating couples several times. 



