EVIDENCES OF EVOLUTION 17 



the different islands and on the continent 

 were blood-relations with a common de- 

 scent? Thus it was that in the Galapagos 

 Archipelago Darwin felt himself "brought 

 near to the very act of creation." 



"My attention," Darwin writes, "was first 

 thoroughly aroused by comparing together 

 the numerous specimens, shot by myself and 

 several other parties on board, of mocking 

 thrushes, when, to my astonishment, I dis- 

 covered that all those from Charles Island 

 belonged to one species (Mimus trif asciatus) ; 

 all from Albemarle Island to M. parvulus; 

 and all from James and Chatham Islands 

 (between which two other islands are situ- 

 ated as connecting links) belonged to M. 

 melanotis." 



All subsequent investigations have con- 

 firmed Darwin's observations, both in their 

 general result and in details. Thus it has 

 since been shown by Ridgway that the 

 thrushes from James and Chatham Islands 

 of the same group are also of distinct species. 

 And of one hundred and twenty-eight speci- 

 mens of a lizard called Tropidurus collected 

 by the "Albatross" from eight of the islands, 

 Dr. Baur writes just as Darwin did: "I was 

 not a little astonished to find that nearly 

 every island contained a peculiar race of 

 species of this lizard, and that not a single 



