&IRDS. #5 



deserves attention. Most of the organic productions are aboriginal 

 creations, found nowhere else ; there is even a difference between the 

 inhabitants of the different islands ; yet all show a marked relationship 

 with those of America, though separated from that continent by an 

 open space of ocean, between 500 and 600 miles in width. The archi- 

 pelago is a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached to 

 America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists, and has received the 

 general character of its indigenous productions. Considering the small 

 size of these islands, we feel the more astonished at the number of their 

 aboriginal beings, and at their confined range. Seeing every height 

 crowned with its crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-streams 

 still distinct, we are led to believe that within a period, geologically 

 recent, the unbroken ocean was here spread out. Hence, both in space 

 and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact 

 that mystery of mysteries the first appearance of new beings on this 

 earth. 



Of terrestrial mammals, there is only one which must be considered 

 as indigenous, namely, a mouse (Mus Galapagoensis), and this is 

 confined, as far as I could ascertain, to Chatham Island, the most 

 easterly island of the group. It belongs, as I am informed by Mr. 

 Waterhouse, to a division of the family of mice characteristic of 

 America. At James Island, there is a rat sufficiently distinct from the 

 common kind to have been named and described by Mr. Waterhouse ; 

 but as it belongs to the old-world division of the family, and as this 

 island has been frequented by ships for the last hundred and fifty 

 years, I can hardly doubt that this rat is merely a variety, produced by 

 the new and peculiar climate, food, and soil, to which it has been sub- 

 jected. Although no one has a right to speculate without distinct facts, 

 yet even with respect to the Chatham Island mouse, it should be borne 

 in mind, that it may possibly be an American species imported here ; 

 for I have seen, in a most unfrequented part of the Pampas, a native 

 mouse living in the roof of a newly-built hovel, and therefore its trans- 

 portation in a vessel is not improbable: analogous facts have been 

 observed by Dr. Richardson in North America. 



Of land-birds I obtained twenty-six kinds, all peculiar to the group 

 and found nowhere else, with the exception of one lark-like finch from 

 North America (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), which ranges on that continent 

 as far north as 54, and generally frequents marshes. The other 

 twenty-five birds consist, firstly, of a hawk, curiously intermediate in 

 structure between a Buzzard and the American group of carrion-feeding 

 Polybori ; and with these latter birds it agrees most closely in every 

 habit and even tone of voice. Secondly, there are two owls, repre- 

 senting the short-eared and white barn-owls of Europe. Thirdly, a 

 wren, three tyrant fly-catchers (two of them species of Pyrocephalus, 

 one or both of which would be ranked by some ornithologists as only 

 varieties), and a dove all analogous to, but distinct from, American 

 species. Fourthly, a swallow, which though differing from the Progne 

 purperea of both _ Americas, only in being rather duller coloured, 

 smaller, and slenderer, is considered by Mr. Gould as specifically 



