54 CHARLES DARWIN 



each form must necessarily have been developed not 

 merely for the group, but for the special island which it 

 actually inhabits. No wonder that Darwin should say 

 in conclusion, c One is astonished at the amount of 

 creative force, if such an expression may be used, dis- 

 played on these small, barren, and rocky islands ; and 

 still more so at its diverse, yet analogous, action on 

 points so near each other.' Here again, in real earnest, 

 the young observer trembles visibly on the very verge 

 of natural selection. .In the 'Origin of Species' he 

 makes full use, more than once, of the remarkable facts 

 he observed with so much interest in these tiny isolated 

 oceanic specks of the American galaxy. 



From the Galapagos the ' Beagle ' steered a straight 

 course for Tahiti, and Darwin then beheld with his own 

 eyes the exquisite beauty of the Polynesian Islands. 

 Thence they sailed for New Zealand, the most truly 

 insular large mass of land in the whole world, supplied 

 accordingly with a fauna and flora of most surprising 

 meagreness and poverty of species. In the woods, our 

 observer noted very few birds, and he remarks with 

 astonishment that so big an island as large as Great 

 Britain should not possess a single living indigenous 

 mammal, save a solitary rat of doubtful origin. Australia 

 and Tasmania, with their antiquated and stranded mar- 

 supial inhabitants, almost completed the round trip. 

 Keeling Island next afforded a basis for the future 

 famous observations upon coral reefs; and thence by 

 Mauritius, St. Helena, Ascension, Bahia, Pernambuco, 

 and the beautiful Azores, the { Beagle ' made her way 

 home by slow stages to England, which she reached in 

 safety on October the 2nd, 1836. What an ideal education 



