458 THE CONTINENTAL ORIGIN OF FIJI, 



to the islands to the westward, such as the New Hebrides, than 

 to the Friendly Islands on the east, though so much nearer." 



In 1892 Hedley (13, p. 400) claimed that the molluscan fauna 

 indicates that Fiji must be regarded as the extreme eastern 

 extension of the Melanesian Plateau. 



In his '• Zoogeographic Scheme for the Mid- Pacific " (13) he 

 gives an admirable summary of the biological evidence for the 

 continental origin of Fiji. He explains that the fauna and flora 

 contain numerous species which cannot pass wide stretches of 

 deep ocean, whilst the islands to the eastward (Tonga, Samoa, 

 lire.) are populated only by such organisms as are capable of 

 swimming, flying, or being blown or drifted, or otherwise trans- 

 ported across permanent deep water. The continental inhab- 

 itants of Fiji are not confined to a single or even to a few groups 

 of the animal and vegetable kingdom, but are well distributed 

 over the whole range. The vegetation, land molluscan fauna, 

 marine molluscs, reptiles, land planarians, coleoptera, itc, all 

 agree in pointing to this conclusion. 



He says (p. 399), "From geological data it is evident that the 

 Fijian group has undergone much recent upheaval; previous to 

 which it certainl}" underwent great subsidence. Prior to that 

 subsidence, it is generally admitted that the group stood at a 

 level sufhcientl}' high to unite such outlying islands as Kadavu* 

 to the principal masses of Vanua Levu and Yiti Levu. Such a 

 union is indicated by the close affinity of their land molluscan 

 fauna, and some measure of its antiquity is afforded by the 

 specific differentiation which has arisen between corresponding 

 species w^iich represent each the other in different islands, as the 

 ^'arious Trochomorpha and Placostylus do. 



" The writer was the first to contend that this former eleva- 

 tion not only sufficed to amalgamate the separate islands, but to 

 join the whole to the Solomon Group." 



Ortmann (is) has shown that a like result is obtained by the 

 study of the distribution of freshwater crustaceans. With regard 



* I have given the native spelling (W.G.W.). 



