That a commencement, however, as a sort of foundation whereon
others might continue to huild, should he made, seemed to me
desirable, as a first step whereby a whole might ultimately be attained.
I t being my lot to be stationed at St. Helena, I have endeavoured,
with the limited time at my disposal, to make that Island a starting-
point in such a work ; and if it appears presumptuous to publish the
little I have been able to achieve, I would explain, that it is done
with the hope that others, who have the opportunity, may take up
the thread of the subject, and add the Fauna and Flora of some one
or more of the other Islands, until all shall be completed.
I t is evident that as each year passes by it becomes more and
more difficult to distinguish between the really indigenous species
and those which have followed in the track of civilization; hut the
difficulty is not so great as at first sight appears, if peculiar circumstances
are observed, localities carefully noted, and the collections
investigated, as mine have been, by eminently scientific men. My
warmest thanks are due not only to those gentlemen I have already
mentioned, hut others also, who have examined and described my
specimens, and in many ways, with much kindness and courtesy,
encouraged and assisted me in the undertaking; especially Mr.
Francis Walker, who has named nearly the whole of my insects,
excepting the Coleóptera, and permitted me to use his original
descriptions of new species.* I have myself endeavoured to aim at
accuracy, and not having collected elsewhere, I can claim exemption
from the possibility of my specimens having become mixed with any
from other places.
Those species which are without doubt indigenous to the
Island are distinguished by an asterisk prefixed to their names,
while others have their chief habitat denoted. To each I have
endeavoured to add the local name or some short description, by
which it may be readily recognised by persons who may be interested
in continuing to collect, but who cannot spare the necessary time to
make a full study of the subject.
My ideas on the geological formation of the Island were formed,
and my notes thereon written, before I met with the account given
by Mr. Darwin, after his short visit to the Island in the Beagle,
* Since this preface was written, I have, with very great regret, heard of the death of
Mr. Walker, and I would wish to thank Mr. Janson for kindly correcting the proois ot
Mr. Walker’s original descriptions.
thirty years ago, and before I bad the pleasure of examining the
Island in company with Captain J. R. Oliver, R.A., a few years ago,
who subsequently published a pamphlet on the subject; and it is
extremely satisfactory to me to find that in the main points we are
all unanimous in opinion as to the geological construction of the
Island.
Mr. Andrew Murray, F.L.S., in a very interesting paper, recently
published,* on the geographical relations of the chief Coleopterous
Fauna, taking as a basis the theory of S continuity of soil at some
former period,” to explain the present geographical distribution of
plants and animals over the globe, expresses his conviction “ that
there has been one, possibly two, great continental routes of communication
between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, both
now lying buried in the ocean, the one at the bottom of the
Atlantic, the other in the depths of the P a c if ic a n d points to St.
Helena as a crucial test to the hypothesis of a communication
between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres by an Atlantic continent.
Mr. Poland Trimen, F.L.S., F.Z.S., having himself visited
some of the Atlantic islands, shows in a subsequent paper,f with some
lucid notes, a disinclination to favour this theory of dispersal, and
refers to the opinion of Mr. Darwin (Orig. of Spec., 4th edit,
p. 427) as being also unfavourable to such an hypothesis. As regards
the Oceanic Islands, of which St. Helena forms a type, it seems to
me that the hypothesis is not in any way borne out by an investigation
of the geological structure of the Island, hut, on the
contrary, every characteristic of that volcanic mass seems to point
to an entirely insular land of vast antiquity.
No branch of Natural History is perhaps so calculated to
convey a correct idea of a place as its Botany, and a careful and
full account of even its exotic plants and flowers, with the particulars
and peculiarities which surround them, would in this respect
not be without some value. I have therefore endeavoured to make
my list include every plant that is found in the Island; and in
doing so I have had the aid of Dr. Roxburgh’s Catalogue, and
also been fortunate enough, through the kindness of Dr. Hooker, to
have my own collection examined and identified at the Kew Herbarium,
where I have received much kind and ready assistance from
# Journal Linn. Soc., vol. xi. No. 49, 1870. f Ibid. No. 52, 1871.