150 GALAPAGOS AUCHIPKLAGO. 



the plants have a wretched, weedy appearance, 

 and I did not see one beautiful flower. The in- 

 sects, again, are small sized and dull coloured, and, 

 as Mr. Waterhouse informs me, there is nothing 

 in their general appearance which would have led 

 him to imagine that they had come from under the 

 equator. The birds, plants, and insects have a des- 

 ert character, and are not more brilliantly coloured 

 than those from southern Patagonia; we may, 

 therefore, conclude that the usual gaudy colouring 

 of the intertropical productions is not related either 

 to the heat or light of those zones, but to some 

 other cause, perhaps to the conditions of existence 

 being generally favourable to life. 



We will now turn to the order of reptiles, which 

 gives the most striking character to the zoology 

 of these islands. The species are not numerous, 

 but the numbers of individuals of each species are 

 extraordinarily great. There is one small lizard 

 belonging to a South American genus, and two spe- 

 cies (and probably more) of the Amblyrhynchus — 

 a genus confined to the Galapagos Islands. There 

 is one snake which is numerous ; it is identical, as 

 I am informed by M. Bibron, with the Psammophis 

 Temminckii from Chile. Of sea-turtle I believe 

 there is more than one species ; and of tortoises 

 there are, as we shall presently show, two or three 

 species or races. Of toads and frogs there are 

 none : I was sui-prised at this, considering how well 

 suited for them the temperate and damp upper 

 woods appeared to be. It recalled to my mind the 

 remark made by Bory St. Vincent,* namely, that 



* Voyage aux Quatre lies d'Afrique. With respect to the 

 Sandwich Islands, see Tyerman and Bennett's Journal, vol. i., p. 

 434. For Mauritius, see Voyage par un Officier, &c., part i., p. 

 170. There are no frogs in the Canary Islands (Webb et Berthe- 

 lot, Hist. Nat. des lies Canaries). I saw none at St. Jago in the 

 Cape de Verds. There are none at St. Helena. 



