232 Darwin, and after Darwin. 



in South Africa ; but it is specifically distinct, and 

 therefore peculiar to the island. The insect life, on 

 the other hand, is abundant. Of beetles no less than 

 129 species are believed to be aboriginal, and, with 

 one single exception, the whole number are peculiar 

 to the island. " But in addition to this large amount 

 of specific peculiarity (perhaps unequalled anywhere 

 else in the world), the beetles of this island are 

 remarkable for their generic isolation, and for the 

 altogether exceptional proportion in which the great 

 divisions of the order are represented. The species 

 belong to 39 genera, of which no less than 25 are 

 peculiar to the island ; and many of these are such 

 isolated forms that it is impossible to find their 

 allies in any particular country V 1 M.ore than two- 

 thirds of all the species belong to the group of 

 weevils a circumstance which serves to explain the 

 great wealth of beetle-population, the weevils being 

 beetles which live in wood, and St. Helena having 

 been originally a densely wooded island. This cir- 

 cumstance is also in accordance with the view that 

 the peculiar insect fauna has been in large part 

 evolved from ancestors which reached the island by 

 means of floating timber ; for, of course, no explana- 

 tion can be suggested why special creation of this 

 highly peculiar insect fauna should have run so dis- 

 proportionately into the production of weevils. About 

 two-thirds of the whole number of beetles, or over 

 80 species, show no close affinity with any existing 

 insects, while the remaining third have some rela- 

 tions, though often very remote, with European and 

 African forms. That this high degree of peculiarity 



1 Wallace, Island Life, p. 287. 



