236 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



REPTILES. 



On the Geographical Distribution of Reptiles.— It is so seldom we 

 obtain a well-authenticated instance of the fortuitous landing of a reptile 

 on an island, far distant from the continental home of the animal, that 

 the following record of an Alligator arriving by natural causes on the 

 ocean-girt island of Barbados is replete with interest, as it affords an 

 exemplification of how the geographical distribution of reptiles on islands 

 may be brought about. In September, 1880, one of the lighthouse- 

 keepers at Needham Point, Carlisle Bay, Barbados, informed Staff-Sergeant 

 Charles Anderson, whose quarters were near, that there was a strange 

 animal in the sea. Anderson took his rifle and three rounds of ammunition, 

 and went to the beacb, and there saw the head of an Alligator protruding 

 from the water outside of the coral-reef, some forty yards from shore. 

 Running into the water, Anderson mounted on a piece of coral-rock, and 

 shot the reptile behind the eye ; it lashed the water with its tail, and made 

 for shore; before it reached the land Anderson put a second bullet into 

 its head, and a third, after the reptile landed, killed it. This Alligator 

 measured ten feet in length, aud is preserved in the island. It whs 

 considered such a curiosity that Sergeant Anderson was given twenty-rive 

 dollars for the carcase, and the purchaser realized a considerable profit by 

 its exhibition. On the same day, and within half-a-mile of the spot where 

 the Alligator lauded, a large tree came ashore. I am informed by Mr. D. 

 M'Nicol, contractor to the Royal Engineer Department in this island, 

 who purchased the tree, that it measured forty feet in length ; the roots 

 and part of the branches were attached to the stem ; a section of it now 

 lying in the R.E. Yard measures three feet in thickness. Mr. M'Nicol 

 considers the tree to be the species which is called "silver holla" in 

 Demerara. On one point he is quite satisfied, namely, that no such tree 

 grows on the island of Barbados. That the reptile was transported on 

 this tree from the South-American continent, probably by the current from 

 the Orinoco river, admits of no doubt. The distance from the mouth of 

 the Orinoco to Barbados is about two hundred and fifty miles, and the 

 chance of the reptile crossing that wide extent of ocean on a tree during 

 the stormy season was very remote, while the accident of its having stranded 

 on the small island of Barbados, the most eastern of the Antilles, is so 

 greatly against the theory of probabilities, that the chances would be 

 impossible to calculate. Still the fact of the animal's transport in safety 

 remains. Supposing, however, a similar instance had occurred prior to 

 the advent of man to Barbados, and the Alligator landing had been a 

 female containing impregnated ova, Alligators might have been found 

 on this little coral island, surrounded on all sides by great ocean depths. 

 '1 he introduction of the formidable Fer-de-lance Snake, Craspedocephalus 

 lanceulatus, to the two islands of St. Lucia and Martinique, and its 



