SCIENCE-GOSSIP 



61 



DISPERSAL OF FLORA AND FAUNAE. 



By E. L. Layard, C.M.G., F.Z.S. {Late H.B.M. Consular Service-) 

 Second Article. 



OINCE I wrote my reminiscences on this subject 

 (page 28, ante) a few more cases have occurred 

 to me, which may be of interest to your readers, so 

 I here relate them. 



There is a shell, Bulimus (Placostylus) edwardsianus, 

 Gassies, found on the east coast of New Caledonia, 

 which is evidently not of the form or type of the 

 Bulimi of that island, but of those of the neighbour- 

 ing group, the Loyalty Islands. It struck my eye 

 instantly, on collecting it myself, knowing the type 

 of shells to the right and left of it. On making 

 enquiries I learnt that where the shell is most 

 abundant, the warlike and savage natives of the 

 Loyalty Islands used to land from their war-canoes 

 to attack the natives of the Main Island. Doubtless 

 this shell formed part of the food brought by them 

 for their sustenance, as it is even now employed, 

 and getting loose established itself there. It has 

 become slightly different, owing to the change of 

 food, etc., from B. uveanus, but, in my opinion, not 

 enough to separate it completely. 



The widow of my late friend, Vernon Wollaston, 

 so well-known in connection with his researches in 

 the Fauna of the Atlantic Islands, and the author 

 of " Testacea Atlantica," some time since gave me 

 a lot of his duplicate shells, in the boxes in which 

 my friend had collected them. Among them is a 

 box containing a lot of fine adult Helix muralis, 

 labelled, in his well-known handwriting, "H. muralis 

 from the top of St. Peter's, at Rome." These are 

 evidently his own collecting, and now the question 

 arises — how did they get up to that altitude ? It 

 is hardly likely that they chmbed thither. I think 

 it probable that they were conveyed thither by 

 birds — pigeons, I suspect, were the carrying agents — 

 conveying examples up there, adhering to sticks 

 used in the construction of their nests. I wonder 

 if they find anything to eat on the roof. 



Some forty years ago my son, then a little boy, 

 came in from a walk in Trafalgar Square with his 

 nurse, with his little hands full of Limnea peregra, 

 which he had collected in the stone basins of the 

 fountains. Now these fountains are fed from artesian 

 wells, and on my exhibiting the snails that same 

 evening, alive, at a zoological meeting, a discussion 

 arose as to how they got there. I suggested that 

 the spawn of the shells had been conveyed bv the 

 sparrows, who, after bathing in the parks, had 

 resorted to them during the day to drink, and this 

 solution was pretty generally adopted. 



I send you the seed of a lovely plant ; its beauti- 

 fully coloured flower is in form between a snap- 

 dragon and foxglove. I found it growing on a 



refuse-heap by the- roadside, near a gate of the 

 " Ferme Modele," in New Caledonia. No one 

 seemed to know it, and I think it must be an 

 accidental introduction. The seed is so remarkable 

 that I think it well merits a figure in your valuable 

 pages. You will see how admirably adapted its 

 wonderfully sharp, steel-like hooks are for the 

 purpose of catching the hide of any animal, and 

 holding to it until brushed off by passing through 

 bushes, thus ensuring its wide distribution. 



Nat. size. 



My friend, Mr. William Theobald, late of the 

 Geological Survey of India, the well-known 

 conchologist, gives me the following particulars of 

 this seed : " The curious two-hooked seed belongs 

 to the plant, Martynia diandra (Dore's system), of 

 the natural order Sesameo (see ' Maout and 

 Decaisne's Botany,' edited by Sir J. D. Hooker, 

 1876, page 609). The plant is a common hedge- 

 weed in Bengal, and the seed, which is encased in a 

 fleshy green plum, bears, when divested of its flesh, 

 a striking resemblance to the head of a snake, with 

 strongly recurved farjgs. I believe the plant occurs 

 in Burma, though it is not recorded by Kurz ; but 

 I have seen the seed among the miscellaneous 

 collection of articles in a snake charmer's wallet in 

 Rangoon, where it might have been received from 

 India. Its use as an antidote to snake-bite is a 

 striking example of the survival to our own times 

 of the mediaeval doctrine of ' Signatures,' wherebv 

 men thought that the virtues of plants were 

 indicated by some similarity in them of form or 

 colour to the diseases they were potent to cure. In 

 his 'Popular Names of British Plants,' Dr. Prior 

 thus quotes from Cole's ' Art of Simpling ' (intro- 

 duction, p. xv.) : ' Though sin and Sathan have 

 plunged mankinde into an ocean of infirmities, yet 

 the mercy of God, which is over all his workes, 

 maketh grasse to grow upon the mountaines, and 

 herbes for the use of men, and hath not only 

 stamped upon them a distinct forme, but also given 

 them particular signatures, whereby a man may 

 read, even in legible characters, the use of them.' 

 Naturally by this argument of ' signatures,' we 

 might travel a weary while before we came across 

 a remedy so marked by nature, to heal the bite 



