The Island of Malekula, New Hebrides

Abstract

TN 1927, while working out a collection of insects in the Natural History JMuseum, which I had made on the Society Islands and Marquesas Islands during the St. George Expedition, I discovered that there was very little entomological material from the New Hebrides in our national collection. We needed this material to link up our knowledge of the insect fauna of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands with that of Australia and the groups of the South Pacific, and to aid in working out some unnamed species; I therefore planned to visit that group. In 1928, having obtained grants in aid of the expedition, I left England in November and spent two years in the New Hebrides, devoting one year to Malekula, and the remainder of the time to four other islands, with six weeks on Vanua Lava, Banks Islands. I should like to take this opportunity of recording my gratitude to the Royal Society, the Trustees of the Percy Sladen Trust, and of the British Museum of Natural History for their financial aid. The New Hebrides Islands lie between Fiji and Australia, in the same latitude as North Queensland, and extend for about 450 miles from north-west to south-east. There are over thirty islands in all, including rock islets and coral atolls, twenty of these are inhabited and there are twelve main islands. Politically they form one group with the Banks Islands to the north, but geographically the two groups are quite distinct. There are also such important differences between the northern and southern islands of the New Hebrides that in future those south of Efate will probably be considered as a separate group. The group is served by two shipping lines?French and British? running every five or six weeks respectively from Sydney to Vila, on Efate, the capitai; while inter-island trading steamers collect cargo, principally copra, from the plantations. Communication is therefore irregular, and small schooners and even motor-launches are very often the only means of getting to one's destination.