18/8.] HEMIPTER/V OF ST. HELENA. 445 



of Ascension — gives it a degree of importance which it would not 

 otherwise possess ; for about the faunas of remote islands cluster, in 

 an especial manner, a variety of problems which, although they may 

 never be absolutely solved, may yet be brought, by a series of care- 

 fully conducted observations, within the sphere of discussion, and be 

 made to throw some additional light, however faint, on the general 

 questions of geographical zoology. From whatever point of view we 

 look at them, — and there are many which at once suggest themselves 

 along the distinct, but ultimately converging, lines of thought, — the 

 statistics of an oceanic rock, far removed from the ordinary effects of 

 immigration and change,* and bearing more or less of the impress 

 which was stamped upon it by its aboriginal forms of life, have an 

 interest about them which it is scarcely possible to overrate. How 

 the organisms, as we now see them, came to occupy their present 

 areas of distribution, — to what extent they are, or seem to be, « re- 

 lated * to those of the nearest mainland, — whether there is evidence 

 for believing that they have changed to any considerable extent, in 

 their outward configuration, from the types of which they may be 

 presumed by some naturalists to be the remote descendants, — or 

 whether there is reason to suspect that the Hand, which originally 

 placed them where they are, adapted each separate species to the con- 

 ditions which it was destined to fulfil, subjecting one and all of them 

 to a law of permanence under which they can never very materially 

 alter, — are but a tithe of the questions which, if not capable of being 

 answered positively, we may at least ventilate and probe, not altogether 

 without profit, in even a small treatise like the present one ; for it 

 cannot be too carefully borne in mind that, within the limited sphere 

 where mere speculation (as such) seems likely to have any permanent 

 value, it is to facts, and not to theories, that we must ultimately 

 appeal" 1 . 



The sentences which I have quoted form, I think it will be admitted, 

 an appropriate introduction to a paper descriptive of one of the last 

 collections of insects ever made by their eminent and much regretted 

 writer ; but, before proceeding to the special subject of this memoir, 

 I wish to devote a few words to a consideration of the problems sug- 

 gested by Mr. Wollaston, not, however, with much hope that I shall 

 be able to throw any fresh light on a matter that has puzzled many 

 abler naturalists. 



Of what is actually and satisfactorily known regarding the indi- 

 genous animals and plants of St. Helena, the following is a brief 

 epitome : — 



There are no terrestrial Mammalia, nor any land or freshwater 

 Amphibia, Reptilia, or Fishes. 



Of birds there are at least eight indigenous sea species and one 

 land bird (the Mgialites sanctce-helencc, Harting, very closely allied 

 to the African 2E. varius, Vieill.), which is peculiar to the island. 



As regards the sea-fishes, Dr. Giinther has, in the 'Proceedings' of 

 this Society 2 , given an account of the collections made by Mr. Melliss 



1 T. V. Wollaston, Coleoptera Sancta-Helena, pp. vii & viii. 



2 March 1868 and April 1869. 



