MV ISf.ANPS. 9 



for each new ))l;int, insect, or bird that established itsell' 

 successfully ttMided to make tlie balance of nature more 

 <iiiiilar to the one that obtained in the mainland oppo- 

 >ito, and so decreased the chances of novelty of variation. 

 Hence, it struck ine that the oldest arrivals were the 

 lies wiiich altered most in adaptation to the circumstan- 

 ces, while the newest, finding themselves in comparatively 

 f;unilicir surroundings, had less occasion to be selected 

 for strange and curious freaks or sports of form or 

 colour. 



The peophng of the islands with birds and animals, 

 however, was to me even a more interesting and en- 

 grossing study in natural evolution than its peopling by 

 lants, shrubs, and trees. I may as well begin, there- 

 ore, by telling you at once that no furry or hairy quad- 

 uped of any sort — no mannnal, as I understand your 

 lien of science call them — was ever stranded alive upon 

 he shores of my islands. For twenty or thirty centuries 

 luleed, I waited patiently, examining every piece of 

 ilriftwood cast up uj)on our beaches, in the faint hope 

 hat perhaps some tiny mouse or shrew or water-vole 

 uijihtlurk half drowned in some crannv or crevice of the 

 )ark or trunk. But it was all in vain. I ought to have 

 nown beforehand that terrestrial animals of the higher 

 \ pes never by any chance reach an oceanic island in any 

 art of this planet. The only three specimens of mam- 

 lals I ever saw tossed up on the beach were two 

 rowned mice and an unhappy squirrel, all as dead as 

 oornails, and horribly mauled by the sea and the 

 leakers. Nor did we ever get a snake, a lizard, a frog, 

 1' a fresh-water fish, whose eggs I at first fondly 



