i36.j SEEDS TRANSPORTED BY THE SEA. 331 



Mr. A. S. Keating, who resided twelve months on these islands, of the 

 various seeds and other bodies which have been known to have been 

 washed on shore. " Seeds and plants from Sumatra and Java have 

 been driven up by the surf on the windward side of the islands. 

 Among them have been found the Kimiri, native of Sumatra and the 

 peninsula of Malacca ; the cocoa-nut of Balci, known by its shape and 

 size ; the Dadass, which is planted by the Malays with the pepper-vine, 

 the latter intwining round its trunk, and supporting itself by the 

 prickles on its stem ; the soap-tree ; the castor-oil plant ; trunks of 

 the sago palm ; and various kinds of seeds unknown to the Malays 

 settled on the islands. These are all supposed to have been driven by 

 the N.W. monsoon to the coast of New Holland, and thence to 

 these islands by the S.E. trade-wind. Large masses of Java teak 

 and Yellow wood nave also been found, besides immense trees of red 

 and white cedar, and the blue gum-wood of New Holland, in a perfectly 

 sound condition. All the hardy seeds, such as creepers, retain their 

 germinating power, but the softer kinds, among which is the mangostin, 

 are destroyed in the passage. Fishing-canoes, apparently from Java, 

 have at times been washed on shore." It is interesting thus to discover 

 how numerous the seeds are, which, coming from several countries, are 

 drifted over the wide ocean. Professor Henslow tells me, he believes 

 that nearly all the plants which I brought from these islands, are 

 common littoral species in the East Indian Archipelago. From the 

 direction, however, of the winds and currents, it seems scarcely possible 

 that they could have come here in a direct line. If, as suggested with 

 much probability by Mr. Keating, they were first carried towards the 

 coast of New Holland, and thence drifted back together with the 

 productions of that country, the seeds, before germinating, must have 

 travelled between 1,800 and 2,400 miles. 



Chamisso,* when describing the Radack Archipelago, situated in the 

 western part of the Pacific, states that " the sea brings to these islands 

 the seeds and fruits of many trees, most of which have yet not grown 

 here. The greater part of these seeds appear to have not yet lost 

 the capability of growing." It is also said that palms and bamboos 

 from somewhere in the torrid zone, and trunks of northern firs, are 

 washed on shore : these firs must have come from an immense distance. 

 These facts are highly interesting. It cannot be doubted that if there 

 were land-birds to pick up the seeds when first cast on shore, and a 

 soil better adapted for their growth than the loose blocks of coral, that 

 the most isolated of the lagoon-islands would in time possess a far 

 more abundant Flora than they now have. 



The list of land animals is even poorer than that of the plants. 

 Some of the islets are inhabited by rats, which were brought in a ship 

 from the Mauritius, wrecked here. These rats are considered by 

 Mr. Waterhouse as identical with the English kind, but they are 

 smaller, and more brightly coloured. There are no true land-birds ; for 

 a snipe and a rail (Rallus Phillippensis), though living entirely in the 

 dry herbage, belong to the order of Waders. Birds of this order are 

 * "Kotzebue's First Voyage," vol. iii., p. 155. 



