The
geologist on hearing this will probably refer back in his mind to
the Secondary epochs, when lizards, some herbivorous, some
carnivorous, and of dimensions comparable only with our existing
whales, swarmed on the land and in the sea. It is, therefore,
worthy of his observation that this archipelago, instead of
possessing a humid climate and rank vegetation, cannot be
considered otherwise than extremely arid, and, for an equatorial
region, remarkably temperate.
To finish with the zoology: the fifteen kinds of sea-fish which I
procured here are all new species; they belong to twelve genera,
all widely distributed, with the exception of Prionotus, of which
the four previously known species live on the eastern side of
America. Of land-shells I collected sixteen kinds (and two marked
varieties) of which, with the exception of one Helix found at
Tahiti, all are peculiar to this archipelago: a single fresh-water
shell (Paludina) is common to Tahiti and Van Diemen's Land. Mr.
Cuming, before our voyage, procured here ninety species of
sea-shells, and this does not include several species not yet
specifically examined, of Trochus, Turbo, Monodonta, and Nassa.
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