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BOTANY OF KERGUELEN ISLAND. 
Fuegia and Kerguelen Island, possibly in tlie form of islands, remains as the forlorn 
hope of tlie botanical geographer. By such stepping stones the land birds, so 
numei’ous in the Falkland Islands (which lie in the direction of such hypothetical 
islands), and of Avhicli the vegetation is identical with that of colder South America, 
might, favoured by the prevalent westerly gales, have passed from thence to Ker- 
guelen Island, having adhering to them fruits and seeds. The absence of such 
birds from the present Avi-fauna of Kerguelen Island offers no obstacle to such a 
speculation, as such immigrants would on arrival speedily be destroyed by the pre- 
datory gull and petrels of the island. 
Various phenomena, of very dilferent relative value and nature, but common to 
the three archipelagos, Kerguelen, the Crozets, and Marion, favour the supposition of 
these all having been peopled with land plants from South America by means of 
intermediate tracts of laud that have now disappeared ; in other words, that these 
islands constitute the wrecks of either an ancient continent or an archipelago 
which formerly extended further westwards, and that their present vegetation con- 
sists of the waifs and strays of a mainly Fuegian flora, together with a tcAV survivals 
of an endemic one. 
The extreme southern point of South America, from lat. 52-51° and long. 70° IV. 
comprising Fuegia, is deflected to the eastward. Following its general direction, the 
Falkland Islands group is the first land met Avith (in long. 60° W.) ; its vegetation is 
coinjiaratively rich and exclusively Fuegian ; it has, no doubt, been brought mainly 
by the land and freshwater birds Avhich abound tbere, and are identical with 
Fuegian ones. South Georgia is the next laud met Avith to the eastAAnrd, in long. 
35° W. and 51° S. ; of its vegetation nothing is known except for the scanty obser- 
vations recorded in Cook’s voyage, Avhich indicate its botanical identity with the 
Fuegia. 
Of Bouvet Island, the assumed position of which is long. 5° E. and 51° S., nothing 
is knoAvn ; it was searched for in vain by the Antarctic Expedition in 1813. Marion 
Island is 37° E. and 4'6° S., and the Crozets, in 48° E. and 47° S., are respectively about 
1,650 and 1,200 miles Avest of Kerguelen Island, and there is no land intermediate 
between them. Noav, from such specimens as have been obtained of the vegetation 
of the first of these Islands by Mr. Moseley,* it appears to be almost identical 
with that of Kerguelen Island ; that is, to be Fuegian Avith tbe addition of some of 
the peculiar Kerguelen Island types,-!- and the same remark applies to tlie Crozets, J 
facts from which Mr. Moseley has draAvn identically the same conclusions as those 
to Avhich I had arrived thirty-five years previously from a consideration of the Ker- 
guelen Island flora alone. He says, speaking of Marion Island (Linn. Journ. XV., 
* Journ. Linn. Soc. XIV., 387 and XV., 484. 
t Marion Island contains several Fuegian species not hitherto found in Kerguelen Island, namely, 
Ranunculus biternatus, I[ymeiioj>hi/llu)n tunhridyeme, and probably a Hierochloe (the scented grass 
mentioned by Moseley), together with a Cape fern Aspidium mokrioides and an Asplenium. 
§ See Kidder in Bull. U.S. Nat. Mus. No. 3, p. 31. 
