37: 



A NATURALIST IN THE PACIFIC chap. 



These seven genera, which with the exception of Ruppia, an 

 aquatic genus, are only represented in Hawaii by peculiar species, 

 possess in all cases, except Gouania and the last-named genus, 

 drupaceous or baccate fruits likely to attract frugivorous birds. 

 Two of them, Eurya and Antidesma, have their home in Malaya 

 and in the Asiatic continent ; three of them, Gouania, Maba, and 

 Sideroxylon, are found on both the Asiatic and the American sides 

 of the Pacific Ocean ; whilst Pleiosmilax should, strictly speaking, 

 be regarded as a Polynesian subgenus of Smilax, a world-ranging 

 genus ; and Ruppia is a cosmopolitan brackish- and salt-water 

 genus. 



It is highly probable that Fiji received almost all these genera 

 from the Old World through Malaya ; and in some cases the 

 resemblance between the Malayan and the Fijian species is so close 

 that, as in Gouania, Dr. Seemann questioned if they were not forms 

 of the same species. In other instances, as with Maba, we find a 

 widely-ranging Asiatic and Malayan species, like Maba buxifolia, 

 extending into Western Polynesia, where it is accompanied by 

 other species peculiar to that region. But if the genera were able 

 subsequently to extend their range thence to Hawaii, it is difficult 

 to understand why they have not reached the Tahitian region. It 

 is therefore likely that Hawaii received most of these genera by a 

 northern route and not through the South Pacific ; and it is 

 legitimate to suppose that when Old World genera like Eurya 

 and Antidesma occur in north-eastern Asia, as in Japan and in 

 the neighbouring mainland, Hawaii received the genus by that 

 route. In the case of Eurya it is noteworthy that Fijian and 

 Samoan forms, regarded by Seemann and Gray as distinct species, 

 are viewed by Reinecke as forms of E. japonica, an extremely 

 variable species found in Japan. With genera like Gouania and 

 Maba, that exist on both sides of the Pacific, it is possible that they 

 may have originally reached Hawaii from America. 



A noticeable feature in the instance of genera like Maba and 

 Sideroxylon is that hard seeds or pyrenes | to i inch (i8 to 25 mm.) 

 in length have seemingly been transported by frugivorous birds 

 across the ocean to Hawaii. This at first sight seems improbable; 

 but it is known that fruit-pigeons can swallow very large drupes, as 

 in the case of those of Canarium, Dracontomelon, and Elseocarpus, 

 afterwards disgorging the " stones." They have carried such stones to 

 Fiji, across some 500 or 600 miles of ocean ; and unless we impute a 

 continental origin to Hawaii we must assume that in some cases, as 

 with Elaeocarpus, Maba, and Sideroxylon, they have been able to 



