1835.] ORNITHOLOGY, CUEIOUS FINCHES. 363 



sidered as indigenous, namely, a mouse (Mas Galapagoensis), and 

 this is confined, as far as I could ascertain, to Chatham Island, the 

 most easterly island of the group. It belongs, as I am informed by 

 Mr. Waterhouse, to a division of the family of mice characteristic 

 of America. At James Island, there is a rat sufficiently distinct 

 from the common kind to have been named and described by Mr- 

 Waterhouse ; but as it belongs to the old-world division of the 

 family, and as this island has been frequented by ships for the last 

 hundred and fifty years, I can hardly doubt that this rat is merely 

 a variety, produced by the new and peculiar climate, food, and soil, 

 to which it has been subjected. Although no one has a right to 

 speculate without distinct facts, yet even with respect to the Chat- 

 ham Island mouse, it should be borne in mind, that it may possibly 

 be an American species imported here ; for I have seen, in a most 

 unfrequented part of the Pampas, a native mouse living in the roof 

 of a newly built hovel, and therefore its transportation in a vessel 

 is not improbable: analogous facts have been observed by Dr. 

 Richardson in North America. 



Of land-birds I obtained twenty-six kinds, all peculiar to the 

 group and found nowhere else, with the exception of one lark-like 

 finch from North America (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), which ranges 

 on that continent as far north as 54, and generally frequents 

 marshes. The other twenty-five birds consist, firstly, of a hawk, 

 curiously intermediate in structure between a buzzard and the 

 American group of carrion-feeding Polybori ; and with these latter 

 birds it agrees most closely in every habit and even tone of voice. 

 Secondly, there are two owls, representing the short-eared and white 

 barn-owls of Europe. Thirdly, a wren, three tyrant-flycatchers 

 (two of them species of Pyrocephalus, one or both of which would 

 be ranked by some ornithologists as only varieties), and a dove 

 all analogous to, but distinct from, American species. Fourthly, a 

 swallow, which though differing from the Progne purpurea of both 

 Americas, only in being rather duller coloured, smaller, and slen- 

 derer, is considered by Mr. Gould as specifically distinct. Fifthly, 

 there are three species of mocking-thrush a form highly charac- 

 teristic of America. The remaining land-birds form a most singular 

 group of finches, related to each other in the structure of their 

 beaks, short tails, form of body and plumage : there are thirteen 

 species, which Mr. Gould has divided into four sub-groups. All 

 these species are peculiar to this archipelago ; and so is the whole 



