The Hawaiian Rat. 7 



gin was present, and below the level of this soil I found in two 

 places, where the waves have exposed it, a phosphate rock contain- 

 ing the tests of arboreal and terrestrial mollusca. The presence 

 of these fossils, according to Dr. C. Montague Cooke, indicates a 

 forest area at an earlier period, and a climate very different to that 

 at present. 



"The vegetation now consists of twenty-five species, mostly 

 shore plants, seven of which are of foreign introduction. There 

 is but one species of tree, the milo (Thespesia popubica) present 

 in a small forest covering about one-fifth of the lee side of the 

 island. The open area is partly and the depressions entirely 

 covered with our common salt marsh weed (Sesuvium Portulacas- 

 trum) , and there are three grasses, one of which is native. Of the 

 plants suitable for rat food, there are the grasses, several small 

 berries and the seeds of the milo. All the plants have been identi- 

 fied by Mr. C. N. Forbes, our botanist, and I will send you a list 

 if you wish. 



"Other life on Popoia is represented, among the birds, by at 

 least two species of petrel (which nest and spend the day time in 

 the surface holes, feeding only at night), the migratory and shore 

 birds (plover, turnstone, snipe, etc.), and two introduced land birds 

 which pass the night there for security. The owl or some other 

 predatory bird must occasionally visit it, as on two occasions I 

 have found on the open surface of the island partly eaten rats — 

 one minus a head, and another without head and shoulders. The 

 Hawaiian hawk has not been reported from this vicinity. 



"A skink is very abundant, being found in every corner of the 

 island. I had never seen any geckos until I began to catch the 

 skink, when I saw four specimens and secured three, representing 

 two species. The five skinks caught were of the same species. 



"There are the usual shore and rock crabs, and once I secured 

 in the rat trap a pair of Geograpsus cri7iipes (Dana) which I had 

 not seen before. 



"Before going farther, I should mention that I do not mean 

 to imply that the presence of the rats on Popoia necessarily dated 

 from the ancient forest conditions above referred to. It may have 

 been so. They may also have been carried there since the island 

 was separated from the shore, in the natives' canoes, a means not 

 so readily available to the imported foreign rats and mongoose on 

 account of their larger size. [257] 



