392 GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO. [chap. xvii. 



mundane forms. As before remarked, the insects, for a tropical 

 region, are of very small size and dull colours. Of beetles I col- 

 lected twenty-five species (excluding a Dermestes and Corynetes 

 imported, wherever a ship touches) ; of these, two belong to the 

 Harpalidse, two to the Hydrophilidas, nine to three families of the 

 Heteromera, and the remaining twelve to as many different fami- 

 lies. This circumstance of insects (and I may add plants), where 

 few in number, belonging to many different families, is, I believe, 

 very general. Mr. "VYaterhouse, who has published * an account 

 of the insects of this archipelago, and to whom I am indebted 

 for the above details, informs me that there are several new 

 genera ; and that of the genera not new, one or two are 

 American, and the rest of mundane distribution. With the 

 exception of a wood-feeding Apate, and of one or probably two 

 water-beetles from the American continent, all the species appear 

 to be new. 



The botany of this group is fully as interesting as the zoology. 

 Dr. J. Hooker will soon publish in the ' Linnean Transactions ' 

 a full account of the Flora, and I am much indebted to him for 

 the following details. Of flowering plants there are, as far as at 

 present is known, 185 species, and 40 cryptogamic species, mak- 

 ing together 225 ; of this number I was fortunate enough to bring 

 home 193. Of the flowering plants, 100 are new species, and 

 are probably confined to this archipelago. Dr. Hooker conceives 

 that, of the plants not so confined, at least 10 species found near 

 the cultivated ground at Charles Island, have been imported. 

 It is, I think, surprising that more American species have 

 not been introduced naturallv, considerinec that the distance is 

 onlj'^ between 500 and 600 miles from the continent ; and that 

 (according to Collnett, p. 58) drift-wood, bamboos, canes, and the 

 nuts of a palm, are often washed on the south-eastern shores. 

 The proportion of 100 flowering plants out of 185 (or 175 ex- 

 cluding the imported weeds) being new, is sufficient, I conceive, 

 to make the Galapagos Archipelago a distinct botanical province ; 

 but this Flora is not nearly so peculiar as that of St. Helena, nor, 

 as I am informed by Dr. Hooker, of Juan Fernandez. The pe- 

 culiarity of the Galapageian Flora is best shown in certain fami- 



* Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist., vol. xvi. p. 19. 



