60 GARMAN — CLIPPERTON ISLAND LIZARD [ot 
the Moluccas, is so very close as to make a recent specific 
identity extremely probable. In other words Zygosoma arundelii 
sp. n. from Clipperton Island is so closely allied to Zygosoma 
cyanurum from the opposite side of the Pacific that it is most 
reasonable to conclude that the former has been derived from 
the same region and very likely from the same species. JZ. cyan- 
urum is very common among the islands from Samoa, the Fijiis, 
and the Friendly Islands, to New Guinea and the Moluccas, no 
doubt owing its distribution in great part, if not entirely, to the 
ocean currents; and from the area included in its extensive range 
a voyage to Clipperton is not so impracticable as at first sight it 
might seem, for if specimens were once adrift upon floating 
objects the prevailing currents would favor such a journey. The 
conditions in respect to the currents in the ocean around Clipper- 
ton are very different from those around the Galapagos Archi- 
pelago. The latter is in the efflux of the Peruvian current as it 
sweeps westward and blends with the great equatorial; the 
connection with South America by means of the Peruvian current 
is direct, has existed as long as the continent and the islands, 
and in all likelihood made its impress on the fauna of the latter 
very early in their history, interference by a possible strait across 
the Central American isthmus being out of the question, since the 
effect of such a strait would be to restrict the Peruvian current 
somewhat in its northward reach but not to turn it aside from the 
Archipelago. The South American affinities of the fauna of the 
Galapagos accord with the directions of the currents reaching 
those islands. Clipperton lies in the eastern portion of the north 
equatorial counter current which sweeps directly across the 
Pacific from the region about the Moluccas, New Guinea and 
equatorial Polynesia. Between Clipperton and Mexico this 
counter current is deflected southward by the Mexican coast 
current, and then, meeting the Peruvian current north of the 
Galapagos, is turned westward into the equatorial on a journey 
across the Pacific again in the opposite direction. ‘The existing 
ocean currents prevent floating objects from reaching Clipperton 
from the north, the east and the south; access to the island by 
their aid is possible only from the west, and, without closing our 
eyes to the immensity of the distance that must have been 
