FAUNA. 21 



J. D. Hooker, London, iS68; also Dr. Hooker's admirable New Zealand Flora ; Mann's 

 EiiiDiicratioii of Haivaiian Plants; Die ]^egetation der Frde, b_v A. H. R. Grisebach; 

 /nfrodnflion lo the Botany of the Challenger Expedition, by W. B. Helmsley. 



I/and Fauna. — In eastern Polynesia rats and mice were the only indigenous 

 mammals, but to the west the wonderful Marsupials of Australia and New Guinea, the 

 fruit-eating bats and some small and comparativeh- unimportant mammals extend the 

 list slightly. Reptiles are not more abundant. New Zealand and the Hawaiian 

 Islands have no snakes. Samoa, Fiji and Micronesia have a few harmless forms; 

 while Australia has numerous deadly species. Crocodiles are found in Queensland 

 and on some of the islands not far distant, and the lizards of Australia are of many 

 species and sometimes of considerable size. New Zealand has the curious Tuatara 

 {Hat'teria punctata, Gray), but as we go eastward the species and individuals diminish 

 until on the Hawaiian Group there are but six small species of lizard, and these are 

 disappearing before the introduced mongoos. Of the birds New Guinea has the re- 

 markable Birds of Paradise, and Australia has many and most interesting species. 

 New Zealand has the Kiwi, a remnant of some of the most wonderful birds, now ex- 

 tinct, that liave ever lived. Samoa has another survival in the Didniuulits, but again 

 as we go east the birds grow scarce. In insect life the rule holds good and the fine 

 butterflies and gigantic beetles of New Guinea give place to one or two diurnal lepi- 

 doptei'a on Hawaii, where the insect fauna has been well worked and although of great 

 interest to the entomologist has little to interest by size or beaut}' of form. 



The marine fauna is indeed as rich as the land fauna is poor, and the low coral 

 islands of the central Pacific swarm with fishes which have always been the principal 

 food of the inhabitants. These fishes are closely connefted with East Indian forms. 

 The great mammals of this ocean are far more important than those of the land and 

 deserve far more notice than can be given in this sketch. 



Whales and the Whaling Industry. — I place the whales and their pursuit 

 together, for no other animals have caused such changes to the primitive inhabitants 

 and no study of the ethnology of the Pacific can omit or fail to give its proper promi- 

 nence to the whalers and their intercoiirse with the islanders of this ocean. The days 

 are gone when fifty or more American whalers wintered or refitted in the harbors of the 

 Hawaiian Group, but the effeAs of this intercourse will only cease when the weaker 

 race has wholly succumbed to the advance of the white race. It is pleasanter to look for 

 a moment at the whales than to consider the acfts of their hunters. The polar whale 

 {Bahcna mysticetns) comes only into the most northern part of our region, but another 

 species ( B. japoniea ) is found from continent to continent nearly as far south as the 

 Tropic of Cancer. Still another species is common south of Australia, around the 



South American continent, and to some extent between these points {^B. antipoduni). 



[105] 



