THE SEYCHELLES - ISLANDS OF THE GIANT PALMS 43 



in the name was inserted by the British, by whom they were captured 

 during the Napoleonic ^Vars. In spite of 150 years of British rule the 

 bulk of the population of 36,000 Negroes and Creoles still speak a French 

 patois, and most of the place-names have remained French. 



Many geologists and zoogeographers down to our own time have 

 believed that in the Tertiar>' period, between 20 and 30 million years ago, 

 a land-bridge connected Africa and India by way of Madagascar and the 

 Seychelles. There is supposed to have been either a southern continent 

 called Gondwanaland or a mythical land of Lemuria, embracing Mada- 

 gascar, the Seychelles, and the islands of Mauritius and Reunion, which 

 has met with the same fate as the famous lost Atlantis. 



However, not only are all these mainlands and islands separated by 

 ocean depths of between 3,000 and 4,000 metres, but recent studies of 

 their fauna and flora strongly contradict the idea of any connection, 'at 

 any rate since the beginning of the Cretaceous period 60 million years ago. 



A study of the fauna of the Seychelles, for instance, reveals a total 

 absence of non-flying mammals, as well as the fact that nearly all the 

 resident species of birds, reptiles, and amphibians are endemic, or pe- 

 culiar, to this group. Similarly with the insects, 65 per cent, of all species 

 of which are endemic to the islands. These facts indicate that the group 

 has been cut off from immigration for a very long time and so has been 

 able both to preser\'e ancient forms and evoke many new species and 

 genera not met with elsewhere. 



Nevertheless, the fauna of the Seychelles is not typically oceanic like 

 that of, sa)', Hawaii, where as many as 80 per cent, of the insect species 

 are endemic, and where each endemic genus averages five species against 

 barely two in the Seychelles. Unlike the \olcanically formed Hawaiian Is- 

 lands, moreover, the Seychelles seem to have been broken up into the 

 small islands of the present day at a relatively recent period, by strong 

 denudation and a partial subsidence of an area about twice the size of 

 Denmark. ^Vhereas each island of the Hawaii group has a fairly large 

 element of endemic fauna, indicating that the islands have been mutually 

 isolated for a \'ery long time, the fauna of the Seychelles is astonishingly 

 uniform from island to island. 



If, furthermose, we look for the nearest relations to the fauna of the 

 Seychelles, we find that an overwhelming proportion are of Oriental, espe- 

 cially Indian, origin. This suggests immigration from the east or north- 

 east, not necessarily over a land-bridge but rather via groups of islands, 

 which ha\'e now mostly disappeared but which in the past may ha\^e 

 crowned the banks and ridges — in particular the Carlsberg Ridge iden- 



