This
Circumstance Of Insects (And I May Add Plants), Where Few In
Number, Belonging To Many Different Families, Is, I Believe,
Very General.
Mr. Waterhouse, who has published [4] an
account of the insects of this archipelago, and to whom I am
indebted for the above details, informs me that there are
several new genera:
And that of the genera not new, one
or two are American, and the rest of mundane distribution.
With the exception of a wood-feeding Apate, and of one or
probably two water-beetles from the American continent,
all the species appear to be new.
The botany of this group is fully as interesting as the
zoology. Dr. J. Hooker will soon publish in the "Linnean
Transactions" a full account of the Flora, and I am much
indebted to him for the following details. Of flowering
plants there are, as far as at present is known, 185 species,
and 40 cryptogamic species, making altogether 225; of this
number I was fortunate enough to bring home 193. Of the
flowering plants, 100 are new species, and are probably confined
to this archipelago. Dr. Hooker conceives that, of the
plants not so confined, at least 10 species found near the
cultivated ground at Charles Island, have been imported.
It is, I think, surprising that more American species have
not been introduced naturally, considering that the distance
is only between 500 and 600 miles from the continent, and
that (according to Collnet, p. 58) drift-wood, bamboos, canes,
and the nuts of a palm, are often washed on the south-eastern
shores.
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