PREFACE. 
There is perhaps no other spot in the whole world which geogra- 
phically presents so great an interest to the naturalist as St. Helena. 
A small Island, distinctly of volcanic origin, bearing no trace 
whatever of any continental land having existed nearer to it than a 
thousand miles or more, and yet possessing plants and insects that 
have not been found elsewhere in the world, at once suggests the 
inquiry, How did these things get there? The interest attaching 
to such a question was revealed to me by the late Sir William 
Hooker, about thirteen years ago, when he led me to see in the 
peculiar Fauna and Flora of such a spot subjects of the greatest 
scientific value. Subsequently encouraged by Dr. Hooker, C.B., 
F.E.S., General Sir Edward Sabine, it. A., K.C.B., F.Ii.S., Mr. T. 
Vernon Wollaston, M.A., F.L.S., Dr. Gunther, F.R.S., F.Z.S., Dr. 
Gray, F.lt.S., Mr. Francis Walker, F.L.S., Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, 
F.Ii.S., the Eev. 0. P. Cambridge, M.A., Mr. IT. W. Bates, F.Z.S., 
and others, I realized the importance of some attempt being made 
to commence an account of the Fauna and Flora of what may be 
termed the South Atlantic Archipelago, comprising St. Helena, 
Ascension Island, Trinidad with Martin Vaz Eocks, Tristan 
d’Acunha with Nightingale and Inaccessible Islands, Gough’s 
Island, Fernando Noronha near Cape St. lioque in South America, 
St. Pauls and St. Thomas s Islands near the Equator, Anno Bon 
ofi the coast of tropical Africa, and Possession Island on the coast 
of Southern Africa. A carefully prepared, and systematically 
arranged, account of the productions of each of these places, and a 
comparison between them and the productions of the adjacent con- 
tinents of South America and South Africa, would doubtless reveal 
many truths in which science would delight ; but such a work would 
occupy an amount of time and labour far surpassing that which one 
person, even were he free from official duties, could possibly supply. 
