DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANIC BEINGS. 167 



that he could with certainty tell from which island 

 any one was brought. I did not for some time paj 

 sufficient attention to this statement, and I had al- 

 ready partially mingled together 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 cli- 

 mate, rising to a nearly equal height, would have 

 been differently tenanted ; but we shall soon see 

 that this is the case. It is the fate of most voya- 

 gers, no sooner to discover what is most interest- 

 ing in any locality, than they are humed from it ; 

 but I ought, perhaps, to be thankful that I obtained 

 sufficient materials to establish this most remark- 

 able fact in the distribution of organic beings. 



The inhabitants, as I have said, state that they 

 can distinguish the tortoises from the different isl- 

 ands, and that they differ not only in size, but in 

 other characters. Captain Porter has described* 

 those from Charles and from the nearest island to 

 it, namely. Hood Island, as having their shells in 

 front thick and turned up like a Spanish saddle, 

 whilst the tortoises from James Island are rounder, 

 blacker, and have a better taste when cooked. M. 

 Bibron, moreover, informs me that he has seen 

 what he considers two distinct species of tortoise 

 from the Galapagos, but he does not know from 

 which islands. The specimens that I brought 

 from three islands were young ones, and probably 

 owing to this cause neither Mr. Gray nor myself 

 could find in them any specific differences. I have 

 remarked that the marine Amblyrhynchus was 

 larger at Albemarle Island than elsewhere ; and 

 M. Bibron informs me that he has seen two distinct 

 aquatic species of this genus; so that the different 



* V^oyage in the U. S. ship Essex, vol. i., p. 215. 



