440 ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



almost every product of the land and of the water bears the 

 unmistakeable stamp of the American continent. There are 

 twenty-six land-birds; of these, twenty-one, or perhaps 

 twenty-three, are ranked as distinct species, and would com- 

 monly be assumed to have been here created : yet the close 

 affinity of most of these birds to American species is mani- 

 fest in every character, in their habits, gestures, and tones 

 of voice. So it is with the other animals, and with a large 

 proportion of the plants, as shown by Dr. Hooker in his 

 admirable Flora of this archipelago. The naturalist, looking 

 at the inhabitants of these volcanic islands in the Pacific, 

 distant several hundred miles from the continent, feels that 

 he is standing on American land. Why should this be so? 

 why should the species which are supposed to have been 

 created in the Galapagos Archipelago, and nowhere else, 

 bear so plainly the stamp of affinity to those created in 

 America? There is nothing in the conditions of life, in the 

 geological nature of the islands, in their height or climate, 

 or in the proportions in which the several classes are asso- 

 ciated together, which closely resembles the conditions of 

 the South American coast: in fact, there is a considerable 

 dissimilarity in all these respects. On the other hand, there 

 is a considerable degree of resemblance in the volcanic na- 

 ture of the soil, in the climate, height and size of the islands, 

 between the Galapagos and Cape Verde Archipelagoes: but 

 what an entire and absolute difference in their inhabitants ! 

 The inhabitants of the Cape Verde Islands are related to 

 those of Africa, like those of the Galapagos to America. 

 Facts such as these, admit of no sort of explanation on the 

 ordinary view of independent creation : whereas on the view 

 here maintained, it is obvious that the Galapagos Islands 

 would be likely to receive colonists from America, whether 

 by occasional means of transport or (though I do not believe 

 in this doctrine) by formerly continuous land, and the Cape 

 Verde Islands from Africa; such colonists would be liable to 

 modification, — the principle of inheritance still betraying 

 their original birthplace. 



Many analogous facts could be given: indeed it is an al- 

 most universal rule that the endemic productions of islands t 

 are related to those of the nearest continent, or of the near- 



