xxvi EUGENIA 35r 



coral islets of Bougainville Straits in the Solomon Group, were 

 found by me in quantities in the crops of fruit-pigeons shot by 

 Lieut. Heming and Lieut. Leeper on the islets (Solomon Islands, 

 pp. 293, 297 ; Bot. Chall. Exped., Introd. 46, iv. 312). Dr. Seemann 

 remarks that in Fiji the red fruits of E. brackenridgei are eaten by 

 pigeons. The somewhat thin coverings of the seeds of this genus 

 would seem to offer but a slight protection in a bird's stomach, 

 though in one species the test was almost crustaceous. 



Most species possessed only one or two large seeds in each 

 fruit, though this number may vary in the same individual. Thus 

 out of ten fruits of Eugenia rariflora in Fiji, six had one seed, three 

 had two seeds, and one had three seeds. In the fruit of E. neuro- 

 calyx, however, the seeds range from three to five. 



It is the question of size that is of importance in considering 

 the possibility of birds transporting the seeds over a broad tract of 

 ocean. Eugenia rariflora, the species found all over the Pacific, 

 has seeds that measure in the Fijian plant one-fourth to one-third 

 of an inch (6 to 8 mm.) across ; and in Hawaii, according to Hille- 

 brand, they would perhaps be rather smaller. In point of size 

 there is less difficulty with regard to the transport by birds across 

 the ocean to Hawaii of the seeds of Eugenia rariflora than with the 

 "stones" and seeds of some other genera, like Elaeocarpus, 

 Osmanthus, and Sideroxylon, that must have been conveyed there 

 by the same agency. The fruits of several of the Fijian species 

 are of the size of a large cherry ; but it is noteworthy that in those 

 species like E. corynocarpa and E. neurocalyx, where the fruits are 

 large and the seeds about an inch in size, the plants are confined to 

 the Western Pacific only, namely, to the Fiji-Samoa region. 



There is therefore no difficulty, from the standpoint of size, in 

 accounting for the distribution by birds of the widely-ranging 

 Eugenia rariflora over Polynesia ; but at first sight there seems to 

 be a real difficulty with regard to the protective coverings of the 

 seed. Yet Nature speaks with no hesitating voice in the matter. 

 The West Indian and Florida species, E. monticola, regarded as 

 indigenous in the Bermudas, must have reached that group through 

 the agency of birds that carried its seeds over quite 800 or 900 

 miles of sea ; and it may here be noted that South Trinidad, lying 

 some 600 miles off the coast of Brazil, and Rodriguez, distant 

 about 330 miles from Mauritius, each possess species {Bot. Chall. 

 Exped., Introd., 12, i. 32, ii. 128). If fruit-pigeons can transport 

 Eusrenia seeds across 600 or 800 miles of ocean, there would be 

 no difficulty in accounting for the stocking of the Fijian, Tongan, 



