Читать книгу Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific - Felix Speiser - Страница 7

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The vegetation of the New Hebrides is luxurious enough to make all later visitors share Quiros’ amazement. The possibilities for the planter are nearly inexhaustible, and the greatest difficulty is that of keeping the plantations from the constant encroachments of the forest. Yet the flora is poorer in forms than that of Asiatic regions, and in the southern islands it is said to be much like that of New Caledonia.

NATIVE TARO FIELD ON MAEVO.

As a rule, thick forest covers the islands; only rarely we find areas covered with reed-grass. On Erromanga these are more frequent.

In the Santa Cruz Islands the flora seems richer than in the New Hebrides.

Still more simple than the flora is the fauna. Of mammals there are only the pig, dog, a flying-fox and the rat, of which the first two have probably been imported by the natives. There are but few birds, reptiles and amphibies, but the few species there are are very prolific, so that we find swarms of lizards and snakes, the latter all harmless Boidæ, but occasionally of considerable size.

Crocodiles are found only in the Santa Cruz Islands, and do not grow so large there as in the Solomon Islands.

Animal life in the sea is very rich; turtles and many kinds of fish and Cetaceæ are plentiful.