MY ISLANDS. 5 



so much closer to our group, were far more likely to 

 bring with them by waves or wind some waifs and 

 strays of the European fauna and flora. 



I well remember the first of these great storms that 

 produced any distinct impression on my islands. The 

 plants that followed in its wake were a few small ferns, 

 whose light spores were more readily carried on the 

 breeze than any regular seeds of flowering plants. For a 

 month or two nothing very marked occurred in the way 

 of change, but slowly the spores rooted, and soon pro- 

 duced a small crop of ferns, which, finding the ground 

 unoccupied, spread when once fairly started with extra- 

 ordinary rapidity, till they covered all the suitable 

 positions throughout the islands. 



For the most part, however, additions to the flora, and 

 still more to the fauna, were very gradually made ; so 

 much so that most of the species now found in the group 

 did not arrive there till after the end of the Glacial epoch, 

 and belong essentially to the modern European assem- 

 blage of plants and animals. This was partly because the 

 islands themselves were surrounded by pack-ice during 

 that chilly period, which interrupted for a time the 

 course of my experiment. It was interesting, too, after 

 the ice cleared away, to note what kinds could manage 

 by stray accidents to cross the ocean with a fair 

 chance of sprouting or hatching out on the new soil, 

 and which were totally unable by original constitution 

 to survive the ordeal of immersion in the sea. For 

 instance, I looked anxiously at first for the arrival of 

 some casual acorn or some floating filbert, which might 

 stock my islands with waving greenery of oaks and hazel 



