14G GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO. 



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 fi-om 

 the common kind to have been named and descri- 

 bed by INIr. 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 pecu- 

 liar climate, food, and soil to which it has been 

 subjected. Although no one has a right to specu- 

 late 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 unfre- 

 quented part of the Pampas a native mouse living 

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

 transportation in a vessel is not improbable : anal- 

 ogous facts have been observed by Dr. Richardson 

 in North America. 



Of land-birds I obtained twenty-six kinds, all 

 peculiar to the gi'oup 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 



