P R E F A C E .
T h e r e is perhaps no other spot in the whole world which geographically
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.R.S., General Sir Edward Sabine, R.A., K.C.B., F.R.S., Mr. T.
Vernon Wollaston, M.A., F.L.S., Dr. Gunther, F.R.S., F.Z.S., Dr.
Gray, F.B.S., Mr. Francis Walker, F.L.S., Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys,
F.R.S., the Rev. O. P. Cambridge, M.A., Mr. H. 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 Rocks, Tristan
d’Acunha with Nightingale and Inaccessible Islands, Gough’s
Island, Fernando Noronha near Cape St. Roque in South America,
St. Paul’s and St. Thomas’s Islands near the Equator, Anno Bon
off 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 continents
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.