no Charles Darwin. 



not for some time pay sufficient attention to this 

 statement, and I had already partially mingled to- 

 gether the collections from two of the islands. I 

 never dreamed that islands about fifty or sixty miles 

 apart, and most of them in sight of each other, 

 formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a 

 quite similar climate, rising to a nearly equal height, 

 would have been differently tenanted. It is the fate 

 of most voyagers no sooner to discover what is most 

 interesting in any locality than they are hurried from 

 it ; but I ought, perhaps, to be thankful that I ob- 

 tained sufficient materials to establish this most 

 remarkable fact in the distribution of organic 

 beings." 



Even the birds varied in the different islands, and 

 in an examination of the insects collected by Darwin 

 Mr. Waterhouse states that none were common to 

 any two of the islands. The same was to a certain 

 extent true with the plants. As to the reason for 

 this Darwin says : " The only light which I can 

 throw on this remarkable difference in the inhabi- 

 tants of the different islands is, that very strong 

 currents of the sea, running in a westerly and west- 

 north-westerly direction, must separate, as far as 

 transportation by the sea is concerned, the southern 

 islands from the northern ones ; and between these 

 northern islands a strong north-west current was ob- 

 served, which must effectually separate James and 

 Albemarle Islands. As the archipelago is free to a 

 remarkable degree from gales of wind, neither the 

 birds, insects, nor lighter seeds would be blown from 

 island to island. And lastly, the profound depth of 



