1836.] SEEDS TRANSPORTED BY THE SEA. 437 



posed 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 have 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 lino. 

 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 1800 and 2400 

 miles. 



Chamisso,* when describing the Uadack 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 con- 

 sidered by Mr. "\Vaterhouse 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 

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



