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Show 1878.] HEMIPTERA OF ST. HELENA. 445 of Ascension-gives it a degree of importance which it would not otherwise possess ; for about the faunas of remote islands cluster, in an especial manner, a variety of problems which, although they may never be absolutely solved, may yet be brought, by a series of carefully conducted observations, within the sphere of discussion, and be made to throw some additional light, however faint, on the general questions of geographical zoology. From whatever point of view we look at them,-and there are many which at once suggest themselves along the distinct, but ultimately converging, lines of thought,-the statistics of an oceanic rock, far removed from the ordinary effects of immigration and change, and bearing more or less of the impress which was stamped upon it by its aboriginal forms of life, have an interest about them which it is scarcely possible to overrate. How the organisms, as we now see them, came to occupy their present areas of distribution,-to what extent they are, or seem to be, ' related ' to those of the nearest mainland,-whether there is evidence for believing that they have changed to any considerable extent, in their outward configuration, from the types of which they may be presumed by some naturalists to be the remote descendants,-or whether there is reason to suspect that the Hand, which originally placed them where they are, adapted each separate species to the conditions which it was destined to fulfil, subjecting one and all of them to a law of permanence under which they can never very materially alter,-are but a tithe of the questions which, if not capable of being answered positively, we may at least ventilate and probe, not altogether without profit, in even a small treatise like the present one ; for it cannot be too carefully borne in mind that, within the limited sphere where mere speculation (as such) seems likely to have any permanent value, it is to facts, and not to theories, that we must ultimately appeal"1. The sentences which I have quoted form, I think it will be admitted, an appropriate introduction to a paper descriptive of one of the last collections of insects ever made by their eminent and much regretted writer; but, before proceeding to the special subject of this memoir, I wish to devote a few words to a consideration of the problems suggested by Mr. Wollaston, not, however, with much hope that I shall be able to throw any fresh light on a matter that has puzzled many abler naturalists. Of what is actually and satisfactorily known regarding the indigenous animals aud plants of St. Helena, the following is a brief epitome:- There are no terrestrial Mammalia, nor any land or freshwater Amphibia, Reptilia, or Fishes. Of birds there are at least eight indigenous sea species and one land bird (the Mgialites sanctce-helenee, Harting, very closely allied to the African AE. varius, Vieill.), which is peculiar to the island. As regards the sea-fishes, Dr. Giinther has, in the 'Proceedings' of this Society2, given an account of the collections made by Mr. Melliss 1 T. V. Wollaston, Coleoptera SanctiB-Helenae, pp. vii & viii. 2 March 1868 and April 1869. |
