Giant Tortoises 65 



volcanoes rising out of the sea. Thus arose a group of 

 about sixty islands and islets, discovered by Euro- 

 peans in 1535 and called "The Enchanted." Exactly 

 three hundred years later they were visited by Charles 

 Darwin, who was then twenty-six years of age, in the 

 course of his Beagle voyage, one of the great "Colum- 

 bus voyages," for it disclosed a new world. The 

 islands were by that time called Galapagos, which 

 means tortoises. Even the discoverer — the Bishop of 

 Panama — had called attention to the giant tortoises, 

 big enough to carry a man ; but what impressed Dar- 

 win more than the size was the fact that each island 

 seemed to have its own kind, so that he felt himself 

 "brought near to the very act of creation." Ten dif- 

 ferent kinds of tortoise on ten adjacent islands, and 

 five kinds in different corners of the largest island, 

 which is called Albemarle — what could it mean but 

 that isolated groups of an original stock had varied in 

 slightly different directions on the various islands, 

 and that isolation had prevented any pooling of the 

 new departures? It should be noticed that these tor- 

 toises (Testudo) are thoroughly terrestrial, and can- 

 not swim from island to island. They are the descend- 

 ants of an original stock which was geologically 

 marooned, so to speak, in Galapagos land, and then 

 isolated in small groups. They form an object-lesson 

 in the potency of isolation as a factor in evolution, 

 and it is deplorable that this object-lesson has been al- 

 ready in great part spoiled by the ruthless and im- 

 pious extermination of the tortoises on some of the 

 islands. 



