2^6 



ISLAND LIFE. 



[part II. 



goats, and tliat in consequence the cost of importing fuel for 

 government use was 2,729/. 7s. Sd. for a single year! About 

 this time large numbers of European, American, Australian, and 

 South African plants were imported, and many of these ran 

 wild and increased so rapidly as to drive out and exterminate 

 much of the relics of the native flora; so that now English 

 broom gorse and brambles, willows and poplars, and some 

 common American, Cape, and Australian weeds, alone meet the 

 eye of the ordinary visitor. These, in Sir Joseph Hooker's 

 opinion, render it absolutely impossible to restore the native 

 flora, vtdiich only lingers in a few of the loftiest ridges and 

 most inaccessible precipices, and is rarely seen except by some 

 exploring naturalist. 



This almost total extirpation of a luxuriant and highly pecu- 

 liar vegetation must inevitably have caused the destruction of 

 a considerable portion of the lower animals which once existed 

 on the island, and it is rather singular that so much as has 

 actually been discovered should be left to show us the na^ture 

 of the aboriginal fauna. Many naturalists have made small 

 collections during short visits, but we owe our present complete 

 knowledge of the two most interesting groups of animals, the 

 insects, and the land-shells, mainly to the late Mr. T. Yernon 

 Yfollaston, who, after having thoroughly explored Madeira and 

 the Canaries, undertook a voyage to St. Helena for the express 

 purpose of studying its terrestrial fauna, and resided for six 

 months (1875-76) in a high central position, whence the loftiest 

 peaks could be explored. The results of his labours are con- 

 tained in two volumes,^ which, like all that he wrote, are 

 models of accuracy and research, and it is to these volumes 

 that we are indebted for the interesting and suggestive facts 

 which we here lay before our readers. 



Insects — Coleoptera. — The total number of species of beetles 

 hitherto observed at St. Helena is 203, but of these no less 

 than seventy-four are common and wide-spread insects, which 

 have certainly, in Mr. Wollaston's opinion, been introduced by 

 human agency. There remains 129 which are believed to be 



1 Coleojiiera Sanctce Ilelence, 1817 ; Testacca Atlaniica, 1878. 



