PREFACE 



ALTHOUGH this volume contains a great amount of original 

 material, I am largely indebted to the labours of my predecessors 

 for its present form ; and a scheme that at first was limited 

 only to my own observations in the Pacific has gradually ex- 

 tended itself to the general subject of plant-dispersal. The 

 farther I proceeded in my work the more I realised that the 

 floras of the Pacific islands are of most interest in their con- 

 nections, and that the problems affecting them are problems 

 concerning the whole plant-world. Deprived of the writings 

 of Seemann, Hillebrand, Drake del Castillo, and other botanists, 

 several of whom have lived and died in the midst of their 

 studies of these floras, and without the aid of the works of 

 Hemsley and Schimper, generalisers who have mainly cleared 

 the way for the systematic study of plant-distribution and 

 plant-dispersal, it would not have been possible for me to ac- 

 complish such an undertaking. 



My interest in plant-dispersal dates back to 1884, when, 

 whilst surgeon of H.M.S. Lark, in the Solomon Islands, I made 

 some observations on the stocking of a coral island with its 

 plants, which were published in the Report on the Botany of 

 the "Challenger" Expedition. In 1888 I followed up the same 

 line of investigation during a sojourn of three months on 

 Keeling Atoll, and during a journey along the coasts of West 

 Java. But realising that as yet I had barely touched the 

 fringe of a great subject, and that several years of study would 

 be required before one could venture even to appreciate the 

 nature of the problems involved and much less to weigh results, 



