Oceanic Islands

Abstract

IT is to be hoped that in the programme of the present Government a place will be found for an item humble and unimportant in the politician's eyes, but to the biologist of the utmost urgency—the sending out of a scientific expedition or expeditions to study the fauna and flora of oceanic islands before they are exterminated by continental importations. Let it be granted that men of science are busy with problems of even greater interest than those which such expeditions might help to solve. But among all the ambitious aims of science, it would be hard to find one to which delay would be more ruinous than to this—the thorough knowledge of the inhabitants, whether animal or vegetable, of oceanic islands. The work must be done speedily, or it will be too late; and it is work that can hardly be undertaken on a sufficiently extensive scale without aid from Government.