I 



BY W. G. WOOLNOUGII. 459 



to these Ortmaiin states that " according to Huxley (Tr. Zool. 

 8oc. 1878, p. 771) Paranepliroijs is said to be found in the Fiji 

 Ishxnds. This locality is supported by two specimens in the 

 British Museum, which are in a very bad condition; moreover 

 there is no report as to the authenticity of the locality, and the 

 genus has never again been reported from these islands." I may 

 add that, though I made no biological collections, I noticed that 

 on the upper tracts of some of the rivers (particularly the Upper 

 Navua) a small species of " crayfish " is used as an article of food 

 b}^ the natives. 



In the same paper it is stated that von Ihering regards the 

 date of separation of New Zealand and Fiji from Australia as 

 being just Pre-Eocene. 



Forbes (lo) also advances very numerous arguments of a bio- 

 logical nature in support of the theory that Australia, New 

 Zealand, and many of the smaller islands were connected in past 

 geological time with South America by an Antarctic land-bridge. 



The earliest geological evidence was obtained by Kleinschmidt, 

 who visited these islands in 1876. The collections made by him 

 for the Museum Godeffroy at Hamburg were examined by 

 Wichmann (20), and the results published in 1883. The most 

 important results obtained were the discovery of quartzite and 

 quartz diorite in situ almost at the centre of Viti Levu. Wich- 

 mann also describes granite, quartz porphyry, syenite porphyry, 

 foyaite, tfec. Most of these were collected amongst the very 

 extensive and varied river gravels of the island. 



More recently Eakle (9) has described the rocks collected by 

 Agassiz. Amongst others he describes a dioritic granite from 

 Vatu Lola in the interior of Viti Levu, but it is not certain that 

 this was in situ. 



Andrews (3) observed the bedded limestones of the Sigatoka- 

 Cuvu District and also the massive limestone of Qali Mari on 

 the Sigatoka. 



