486 



APPENDIX 



true Sargasso, but they call it " Plante do Golfe " (Gulf weed). The 

 other weed evidently grows around the coasts, and is torn off by the 

 breakers in heavy weather. In this connection it may be noted that 

 fragments of true Sargasso have been found on the coasts of Cornwall 

 and on the Shetland beaches, probably in the dead state. 



Note 30 (p. 210). 

 Iguanas, snakes, and alligators, in the Turks Islands. 



It is probable, that iguanas, snakes, and alligators were all of them 

 frequent in these islands before their occupation by white men. 

 The iguanas have been exterminated on all but two or three of the 

 islands. The snakes are now confined to a single cay. The alligators 

 have disappeared, and as their presence would not have been welcome 

 on such small islands they were doubtless effectually destroyed. 

 There can be no difficulty in explaining the existence of snakes and 

 alligators on these islands, since San Domingo lies only about a 

 hundred miles distant from the southernmost cay. 



Large snakes and crocodiles are known to have been transported 

 alive across far broader tracts of sea. For instance, they have 

 reached Keeling Atoll that lies 700 miles from land in the Indian 

 Ocean. When on the atoll in 1888 I was told of three or four living 

 snakes and of a living crocodile that had been stranded there on 

 drift-wood some years before. (See my paper on Keeling Atoll in the 

 Journal of the Victoria Institute of London, 1889.) That this attempt 

 on the part of nature to re-stock the atoll with snakes and crocodiles 

 is always going on is evidenced by the remarks of Wood- Jones, who 

 was on the Keeling Islands in 1905. He refers to the preservation 

 in the Governor's house of the skulls of two crocodiles that had been 

 shot on the atoll after arriving in this fashion. Many snakes must 

 have reached the islands since my visit, clinging as he says, to floating 

 drift. " There are several instances " (he writes) " of large snakes 

 having been killed in the atoll, and others have been picked upon 

 the beach " (Coral and Atolls, 1910, p. 295). 



There must be several records of this kind relating to the West Indian 

 region. Purdy in The Columbian Navigator (1839, III., 31) makes 

 the following interesting note : " Some years back a very large cedar 

 came on shore at Sable or Sandy Bay (St. Vincent), bringing with it 

 a large female boa constrictor, which took to the neighbouring wood, 

 and when shot, some days after, was found to contain many young 

 ones, nearly ready to escape; and which, but for the destruction 

 of the old one, would have taken up their abode in the woods." 

 I may add that large snakes of this description exist on the island 

 of Tobago about 100 miles away; but it would seem most likely 

 that it arrived at St. Vincent with Orinoco drift, and in that case 

 the distance traversed in the swift equatorial current would have 

 been about 300 miles. 



The following notes are taken from my journal in the Turks Islands. 

 Although the large iguanas evidently once existed on all the islands 

 of this small group, they seem now (1911) to be principally, if not 



