Faunal and floral reports upon remote and faunistically young oceanic islands indicate the ability of various plants, minute land snails, Diptera, Coleoptera, etc., to colonize even the remotest islands in somewhat accidental fashion. Various maturer islands (Bermuda, St. Helena, the Hawaiian group, etc.) increase the list but still show meagre original importations underlying their greatly increased array of endemic spp. having common local ancestries. Instances are cited favoring the theory of remote dispersal of minute forms by exceptionally powerful windstorms. Evidence is against continental land-bridges involving distant islands, although extensive inter-island bridges in the South Pacific probably existed. Much of the species-building on islands appears to be non-adaptive and an expression of isolation combined with diminished stability. Nevertheless, in some cases (e.g., especially the Hawaiian drepanid birds) a very high degree of generic adaptive differentiation has occurred, depending on a liberal time allowance. Really radical evolutionary innovations have not been found.