THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 



193 



one region to the other. But the land birds, as well as 

 the reptiles, insects, and plants, are mostly peculiar to 

 the islands. The same species are found nowhere else. 

 But other species very much like them in all respects 

 are found, and these all live along the coast of Peru. 

 In the Galapagos Islands, according to Darwin's notes, 

 " there are twenty-six land birds ; of these, twenty-one, 

 or perhaps twenty-three, are ranked as distinct species, 

 and would commonly be assumed to have been here 

 created ; yet the close affinity of most of these birds to 

 American species is manifest in every character, in their 

 habits, gestures, and tones of voice. So it is with the 

 other animals and with a large proportion of the plants. 

 . . . The naturalist, looking at the inhabitants of these 

 volcanic islands in the Pacific, feels that he is standing 

 on American land." 



This question naturally arises : If these species have 

 been created as we find them on the Galapagos, why is 

 it that they should all be very similar in type to other 

 animals, living under wholly different conditions, but on a 

 coast not far away ? And, again, why are the ani- 

 mals and plants of another cluster of volcanic islands 

 the Cape Verde Islands similarly related to those of 

 the neighbouring coast of Africa, and wholly unlike 

 those of the Galapagos ? If the animals were created 

 to match their conditions of life, then those of the 

 Galapagos should be like those of Cape Verde, the two 

 archipelagoes being extremely alike in soil, climate, and 

 physical surroundings. If the species on the islands 

 are products of separate acts of creation, what is there 

 in the nearness of the coasts of Africa or Peru to in- 

 fluence the act of creation so as to cause the island 

 species to be, as it were, echoes of those on shore ? 



If, on the other hand, we should adopt the obvious 

 suggestion that both these clusters of islands have been 



