1919] WILSON, THE BOXIX ISLANDS 99 



merly were very abundant there. In both these errors the Japanese sailors 

 might, under the circumstances, be readily excused. In 1728 a descendant 

 of Ogasawara Sadayori temporarily established communication with the 

 islands again but after this the Japanese took no further interest in them 

 until 1861. ^It appears, however, from the researches of the late Archdeacon 

 King in the libraries of the British Museum and the Royal Geographical 

 Society that credit belongs to the Spaniard, Ruy Lopez de Villalobos, com- 

 manding an exploring expedition that sailed from Mexico sometime in 1543. 

 After reaching the Philippines on August 26, 1543, he sent oflF a small ship, 

 the *'San Juan," to explore in a northerly direction. Sometime about the 

 middle of October this ship sighted some islands which from the descrip- 

 tion the crew afterwards gave were almost certainly some of the Bonin 

 group. Apparently no landing was effected but that this ship first discov- 

 ered the group may be confidently accepted, and that some fifty years 



before the earliest Japanese claim. 



On some old charts a group of islands, under the name of Arzobispo 

 Islands, is marked roughly where the Bohins lie and some have considered 

 them identical. The Marianos and Ladrones groups, known to navigators 

 early in the sixteenth century, are not so very far south of the Bonins, and 

 these same sailors might well have visited both groups. Be this as it may, 

 in 1823 an American whahng ship, the "Transit," commanded by Captain 

 Coffin touched at the southern group (Haha-jima). In 1825, the '' Supply " 

 an English whaler, visited Port Lloyd (Omura, Chichi-jima) and left a 

 record of her visit by naihng a board to a tree. This board was found by 

 Captain Beechey of the English war-ship ''Blossom" which anchored there 

 on June 9, 1827, and found hving on the island two castaways from the Eng- 

 lish whaling ship '* William," wrecked there in November, 1826. Captain 

 Beechey stayed until June 15, and a full account of the visit is given in his 

 Voyage to the Pacific, ii. Chapter 6, pp. 227-240 (1831). During the stay 

 a number of plants were collected and are enumerated with those from 

 Liukiu in Hooker and Arnott's Botany of Captain Beechey' s Voyage, 258-275. 

 This is the first record of plants being collected on the islands whose very 

 position was not properly charted until this visit. Before leaving a sheet of 

 copper nailed to a board was affixed to a tree and on this the following words 

 w^ere punctured: "H. M. S. ' Blossom,' Captain Beechey, R. N., took pos- 

 session of this group of islands in the name and on behalf of His ^lajesty 



w J» 



King George, the 14th of June, 1827. 



In May of the following year (1828) Captain Liitke, Commander of the 

 Russian corvette ''Senjawin" arrived at the Bonins and annexed them in 

 the name of Russia. On board was F, H. von Kitthtz who was evidently 

 no mean 'artist. His sketches and notes were first published in 1844 

 in German. In 1861 Berthold Seemann translated and edited them under 

 the title of ''Twenty-Jour Views oj the Vegetation oj the Coasts and Islands of 

 the Pacific.'' Plates xiv, xv, xvi give views of the vegetation of the Bonin 

 Islands and are accompanied by delightfully written descriptive notes. 



In May 1830, an American seaman, native of Bradford, Essex County, 



