DISTRIBUTION OF ORGANIC BEINGS. 171 



hold good ; for, to give one instance, a large berry- 

 bearing tree at James Island has no representative 

 species in Charles Island. But it is the circum- 

 stance that several of the islands possess their own 

 species of the tortoise, mocking-thrush, finches, 

 and numerous plants, these species having the same 

 general habits, occupying analogous situations, and 

 obviously filling the same place in the natural econ- 

 omy of this archipelago, that strikes me with won- 

 der. It may be suspected that some of these rep- 

 resentative species, at least in the case of the tor- 

 toise and of some of the birds, may hereafter prove 

 to be only well-marked races ; but this would be 

 of equally great interest to the philosophical natu- 

 ralist. I have said that most of the islands are in 

 sight of each other : I may specify that Charles 

 Island is fifty miles from the nearest part of Chat- 

 ham Island, and thirty-three miles from the nearest 

 pai't of Albemarle Island. Chatham Island is sixty 

 miles from the nearest part of James Island, but 

 there are two intermediate islands between them 

 which were not visited by me. James Island is 

 only ten miles from the nearest part of Albemarle 

 Island, but the two points where the collections 

 were made are thirty-two miles apart. I must 

 repeat, that neither the nature of the soil, nor 

 height of the land, nor the climate, nor the general 

 character of the associated beings, and therefore 

 their action one on another, can differ much in the 

 different islands. If there be any sensible differ- 

 ence in their climates, it must be between the 

 windward group (namely, Charles and Chatham 

 Islands) and that to leeward ; but there seems to 

 be no coiTesponding difference in the productions 

 of these two halves of the archipelago. 



The only light which I can throw on this re- 

 markable difference in the inhabitants of the differ- 



