ing the comparatively rocky desert it now
is, was allowed to pass away.[68] Even in a mere {297} pecuniary point of
view the error was a fatal one, for in the next century (in 1810) another
governor reports the total destruction of the great forests by the goats,
and that in consequence the cost of importing fuel for government use was
2,729l. 7s. 8d. for a single year! About this time large numbers of
European, American, Australian, and South African plants were imported, and
many of these ran wild and increased so rapidly as to drive out and
exterminate much of the relics of the native flora; so that now English
broom gorse and brambles, willows and poplars, and some common American,
Cape, and Australian weeds, alone meet the eye of the ordinary visitor.
These, in Sir Joseph Hooker's opinion, render it absolutely impossible to
restore the native flora, which only lingers in a few of the loftiest
ridges and most inaccessible precipices, and is rarely seen except by some
exploring naturalist.

This almost total extirpation of a luxuriant and highly peculiar vegetation
must inevitably have caused the destruction of a considerable portion of
the lower animals which once existed on the island, and it is rather
singular that so much as has actually been discovered should be left to
show us the nature of the aboriginal fauna. Many naturalists have made
small collections during short visits, but we owe our present complete
knowledge of the two most interesting groups of animals, the insects, and
the land-shells, mainly to the late Mr. T. Vernon Wollaston, who, after
having thoroughly explored Madeira and the Canaries, undertook a voyage to
St. Helena for the express purpose of studying its terrestrial fauna, and
resided for six months (1875-76) in a high central position, whence the
loftiest peaks could be explored. The results of his labours are contained
in two volumes,[69] which, like all that he wrote, are models of accuracy
and research, and it is to these volumes that we are indebted for the
interesting and suggestive facts which we here lay before our readers.

{298}

_Insects--Coleoptera._--The total number of species of beetles hitherto
observed at St. Helena is 203, but of these no less than seventy-four are
common and wide-spread insects, which have certainly, in Mr. Wollaston's
opinion, been introduced by human agency. There remain 129 which are
believed to be truly aborigines, and of these all but one are found