2 A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC CHAR 



generalised on the foundations of a far broader experience, such as 

 those of Bentham, De Candolle, Gray, Hooker, Schimper, and 

 others. 



It would be quite possible for a botanist possessing a profound 

 general acquaintance with the plant-world to dispense altogether 

 with actual observation arid experiment on modes of dispersal. It 

 would be quite possible for him to arrive at conclusions, which, 

 even if they did not always come into line with results of obser- 

 vation and experiment, we should be compelled to prefer. It is 

 only from his more elevated position that a general can follow the 

 course of a battle ; whilst the private with his experience confined 

 to a limited area of the field of conflict may form the most 

 erroneous ideas of the progress of the fight. So it is with 

 observers whose employment it is to struggle with the details and 

 secondary principles of plant-distribution, and so it is with the 

 generaliser who has already roughly mapped out the principal 

 features of the main problem. 



When Mr. Bentham in 1869, remarking on the paucity of 

 species common to tropical Asia and America, characterised them 

 either as plants wholly or partially maritime and spread by the 

 currents, or as weeds dispersed by cultivation over the warm 

 regions of the globe, he mentioned amongst the plants in the 

 former category, Gyrocarpus jacquini. This tree presents one of 

 the mysteries connected with the Pacific islands ; and I don't 

 imagine that this eminent botanist could have known anything 

 except inferentially as regards the mode of dispersal of its fruits. 

 Yet experiment shows how well founded the inference was, whilst 

 behind it lay a life-time of botanical research. 



The author thus approaches the subject of the floras of the' 

 Pacific islands rather as a plotter of detail than as a delineator of 

 great designs. However much we may study the means of 

 dispersal, we have behind them the great facts of distribution, 

 serving like the main stations of a trigonometrical survey, and with 

 these we have to make our lesser facts and observations square. 

 One is conscious all the time that much of what seems new in 

 one's researches has already been foreseen by the generaliser, and 

 that one can do little else than assist in confirming some of his 

 results. This is all that I can lay claim to in this work. 



The floras of the islands and coasts of the tropical Pacific are 

 here regarded entirely from the standpoint of plant-dispersal. The 

 fruits and seeds rather than the flowers have been the subject of 

 my investigations ; and although there is much to please the eye 



