310 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[PART II. 
Concluding .Observations on the Fauna and Flora of the Sand- 
wich Islands. — The indications thus afforded by a study of the 
flora seem to accord well with what we know of the fauna of the 
islands. Plants having so much greater facilities for dispersal 
than animals, and also having greater specific longevity and 
greater powers of endurance under adverse conditions, exhibit 
in a considerable degree the influence of the primitive state of 
the islands and their surroundings ; while members of the 
animal world, passing across the sea with greater difficulty and 
subject to extermination by a variety of adverse conditions, 
retain much more of the impress of a recent state of things, 
with perhaps here and there an indication of that ancient 
approach to America so clearly shown in the Composite and 
some other portions of the flora. 
General Remarks on Oceanic Islands. — We have now reviewed 
the main features presented by the assemblages of organic forms 
which characterise the more important and best known of the 
Oceanic Islands. They all agree in the total absence of indi- 
genous mammalia and amphibia, while their reptiles, when they 
possess any, do not exhibit indications of extreme isolation and 
antiquity. Their birds and insects present just that amount of 
specialisation and diversity from continental forms which may 
be best explained by the known means of dispersal acting 
through long periods ; their land shells indicate greater isolation, 
owing to their admittedly less effective means of conveyance 
across the ocean; while their plants show most clearly the 
effects of those changes of conditions which we have reason to 
believe have occurred during the Tertiary epoch, and preserve 
to us in highly specialised and archaic forms some record of the 
primeval immigration by which the islands were originally 
clothed with vegetation. But in every case the series of forms 
of life in these islands is scanty and imperfect as compared with 
far less favourable continental areas, and no one of them presents 
such an assemblage of animals or plants as we always find in an 
island which we know has once formed part of a continent. 
It is still more important to note that none of these oceanic 
archipelagoes present us with a single type which we may 
suppose to have been preserved from Mesozoic times ; and this 
