Preface

Abstract

Abstract When, in the year 1874, Her Majesty’s Government determined to despatch several expeditions to observe the Transit of Venus, the Council of the Royal Society resolved to request the Treasury to attach naturalists to those destined for Kerguelen’s Land and Rodriguez, two of the least explored and most inaccessible oceanic islands of the southern hemisphere; and a Committee, consisting of Sir J. D. Hooker, Professor Huxley, and Mr. P. L. Sclater, was appointed to prepare the application, which was laid before Her Majesty’s Government in the following term s:—