294 
ISLAND LIFE, 
[part II, 
The other classes of animals in St. Helena need occupy us 
little. There are no indigenous mammals, reptiles, fresh-water 
fishes! or true land-birds ; but there is one species of wader — a 
small plover ( JEgialitis sanctce-helence ) — very closely allied to a 
species found in South Africa, but presenting certain differences 
which entitle it to the rank of a peculiar species. The plants, 
however, are of especial interest from a geographical point of 
view, and we must devote a few pages to their consideration as 
supplementing the scanty materials afforded by the animal life, 
thus enabling us better to understand the biological relations 
and probable history of the island. 
Native Vegetation of St. Helena . — Plants have certainly more 
varied and more effectual means of passing over wide tracts 
of ocean than any kinds of animals. Their seeds are often so 
minute, of such small specific gravity, or so furnished with 
downy or winged appendages, as to be carried by the wind for 
enormous distances. The bristles or hooked spines of many 
small fruits cause them to become easily attached to the 
feathers of aquatic birds, and they may thus be conveyed for 
thousands of miles by these pre-eminent wanderers ; while 
many seeds are so protected by hard outer coats and dense 
inner albumen, that months of exposure to salt water does not 
prevent them from germinating, as proved by the West Indian 
seeds that reach the Azores or even the west coast of Scotland, 
and, what is more to the point, by the fact stated by Mr. Melliss, 
that large seeds which have floated from Madagascar or 
Mauritius round the Cape of Good Hope, have been thrown on 
the shores of St. Helena and have then sometimes germinated ! 
We have therefore little difficulty in understanding how the 
island was first stocked with vegetable forms. When it was 
so stocked (generally speaking), is equally clear. For as the 
peculiar coleopterous fauna, of which an important fragment 
remains, is mainly composed of species which are specially 
attached to certain groups of plants, we may be sure that the 
plants were there long before the insects could establish them- 
selves. However ancient then is the insect fauna the flora 
must be more ancient still. It must also be remembered that 
plants, when once established in a suitable climate and soil, soon 
