THE VOYAGE OF THE BEAGLE 403 



The far greater peculiarity of the land-birds, namely, twenty- 

 five out of twenty-six, being new species, or at least new 

 races, compared with the waders and web-footed birds, is 

 in accordance with the greater range which these latter 

 orders have in all parts of the world. We shall hereafter 

 see this law of aquatic forms, whether marine or fresh- 

 water, being less peculiar at any given point of the earth's 

 surface than the terrestrial forms of the same classes, 

 strikingly illustrated in the shells, and in a lesser degree in 

 the insects of this archipelago. 



Two of the waders are rather smaller than the same spe- 

 cies brought from other places : the swallow is also smaller, 

 though it is doubtful whether or not it is distinct from its 

 analogue. The two owls, the two tyrant-catchers (Pyro- 

 cephalus) and the dove, are also smaller than the analogous 

 but distinct species, to which they are most nearly related; 

 on the other hand, the gull is rather larger. The two owls, 

 the swallow, all three species of mocking-thrush, the dove 

 in its separate colours though not in its whole plumage, the 

 Tetanus, and the gull, are likewise duskier coloured than 

 their analogous species; and in the case of the mocking- 

 thrush and Totanus, than any other species of the two gen- 

 era. With the exception of a wren with a fine yellow breast, 

 and of a tyrant-flycatcher with a scarlet tuft and breast, none 

 of the birds are brilliantly coloured, as might have been ex- 

 pected in an equatorial district. Hence it would appear 

 probable, that the same causes which here make the im- 

 migrants of some peculiar species smaller, make most of the 

 peculiar Galapageian species also smaller, as well as very 

 generally more dusky coloured. All the plants have a 

 wretched, weedy appearance, and I did not see one beautiful 

 flower. The insects, again, are small-sized and dull-coloured, 

 and, as Mr. Waterhouse informs me, there is nothing in their 

 general appearance which would have led him to imagine 

 that they had come from under the equator. 1 The birds, 



1 The progress of research has shown that some of these birds, which were 

 then thought to be confined to the islands, occur on the American continent. 

 The eminent^ ornithologist, Mr. Sclater, informs me that this is the case 

 with the Strix punctatissima and Pyrocephalus nanus; and probably with 

 the Otus Galapagoensis and Zenaida Galapagoensis: so that the number of 

 endemic birds is reduced to twenty-three, or probably to twenty-one. Mr. 

 Sclater thinks that one or two of these endemic forms should be ranked 

 rather as varieties than species, which always seemed to me probable. 



