Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/385

Rh Crab was a small "Sea-Mouse"; also in parts, where the husk was beginning to disintegrate, were several small brownish-black Amphipoda. The discovery of this current-borne Barringtonia is not by any means a unique one, though perhaps the finding of so many tenants is, as cocoa-nuts and other objects of interest are continually being found along our coast, which have been brought from the same far-distant source—the South Sea Islands. I have many times collected, at different points along the coast of New South Wales, small pieces of pumice and volcanic cinders. These have been continually washed up for a considerable number of years at least, as is amply borne out by the fact that they are found deep down in the grass-grown sand-dunes, whenever an opening is made (artificially or otherwise). The most interesting thing to the zoologist is that this flotsam carries with it occasionally—as I can personally bear witness—such animals as tubicolous annelids, and sometimes small specimens of coral. It is almost impossible to conceive what vast changes might be wrought, or what additions might be made, to the fauna or flora of an island lying in the course of the current which carries along this flotsam.

While on this subject I might mention some other ways by which Polynesian animals are transported to our waters. It will at once be self-evident that ships' bottoms are a very fertile agency, as there is a large amount of trade between this port and the islands of the South Pacific. Thus it is not very hard to understand how it is that fairly large specimens of Madrepores should have been found growing in Port Jackson, where they were certainly not pre-existent. Now, turning to the land-animals: our imports from the South Seas consist mainly of copra, pine-apples, bananas, cocoa-nuts, palm-leaf fans, hats, and native matting, and each of these brings along its quota of migrants. I had at one time brought to me a prettily marked Snake, alive, which was curled up in a bunch of bananas, and others have occasionally been found. But the three last-mentioned articles should perhaps claim priority for the number of Arthropoda—in the way of Cockroaches, Spiders, Centipedes, small Coleoptera, &c.—which they bring. On the other hand, I have reason to believe that many animals have been introduced from this country into the islands by means of the same agency—the ships.

During last year (1899), on several of my excursions round