St. Helena, situated so remote from any continent, in the midst of
a great ocean, and possessing a unique Flora, excites our
curiosity. The eight land-shells, though now extinct, and one
living Succinea, are peculiar species found nowhere else. Mr.
Cuming, however, informs me that an English Helix is common here,
its eggs no doubt having been imported in some of the many
introduced plants. Mr. Cuming collected on the coast sixteen
species of sea-shells, of which seven, as far as he knows, are
confined to this island. Birds and insects, as might have been
expected, are very few in number; indeed I believe all the birds
have been introduced within late years. (21/4. Among these few
insects I was surprised to find a small Aphodius (nov. spec.) and
an Oryctes, both extremely numerous under dung. When the island was
discovered it certainly possessed no quadruped excepting PERHAPS a
mouse: it becomes, therefore, a difficult point to ascertain,
whether these stercovorous insects have since been imported by
accident, or if aborigines, on what food they formerly subsisted.
On the banks of the Plata, where, from the vast number of cattle
and horses, the fine plains of turf are richly manured, it is vain
to seek the many kinds of dung-feeding beetles which occur so
abundantly in Europe.
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