her classes of animals in St. Helena need occupy us little. There are
no indigenous mammals, reptiles, fresh-water fishes or true land-birds; but
there is one species of wader--a small plover (_Aegialitis
sanctae-helenae_)--very closely allied to a species found in South Africa,
but presenting certain differences which entitle it to the rank of a
peculiar species. The plants, however, are of especial interest from a
geographical point of view, and we must devote a few pages to their
consideration as supplementing the scanty materials afforded by the animal
life, thus enabling us better to understand the biological relations and
probable history of the island.

_Native Vegetation of St. Helena._--Plants have certainly more varied and
more effectual means of passing over wide tracts of ocean than any kinds of
animals. Their seeds are often so minute, of such small specific gravity,
or so furnished with downy or winged appendages, as to be carried by the
wind for enormous distances. The bristles or hooked spines of many small
fruits cause them to become easily attached to the feathers of aquatic
birds, and they may thus be conveyed for thousands of miles by these
pre-eminent wanderers; while many seeds are so protected by hard outer
coats and dense inner albumen, that months of exposure to salt water does
not prevent them from germinating, as proved by the West Indian seeds that
reach the Azores or even the west coast of Scotland, and, what is more to
the point, by the fact stated by Mr. Melliss, that large seeds which have
floated from {306} Madagascar or Mauritius round the Cape of Good Hope,
have been thrown on the shores of St. Helena and have then sometimes
germinated!

We have therefore little difficulty in understanding _how_ the island was
first stocked with vegetable forms. _When_ it was so stocked (generally
speaking), is equally clear. For as the peculiar coleopterous fauna, of
which an important fragment remains, is mainly composed of species which
are specially attached to certain groups of plants, we may be sure that the
plants were there long before the insects could establish themselves.
However ancient then is the insect fauna the flora must be more ancient
still. It must also be remembered that plants, when once established in a
suitable climate and soil, soon take possession of a country and occupy it
almost to the complete exclusion of later immigrants. The fact of so many
European weeds having overrun