30 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [part hi. 



changed under its new conditions of life (the genus Mas not being 

 indigenous to the American continent), it is not improbable, as 

 Mr. Darwin remarks, that the American mouse may also have 

 been imported by man, and have become similarly changed. 



Birds} — Eecent researches in the islands have increased the 

 number of land-birds to thirty-two, and of wading and aquatic 

 birds to twenty-three. All the land birds but two or three arc 

 peculiar to the islands, and eighteen, or considerably more than 

 half, belong to peculiar genera. Of the waders 4 are peculiar, 

 and of the swimmers 2. These are a rail {Porzana spilonota); 

 two herons (Butorides |;/2w«&ca and Nycticorax pauper) ; a 

 flamingo {Pha^nicopterusghj^jhorhynchus) ; while the new aquatics 

 are a gull {Lanes fuliginosus), and a penguin {Sphcniscus mendi- 

 cuhis). 



The land- birds are much more interesting. All except the 

 birds of prey belong to American genera which abound on the 

 opposite coast or on that of Chili a little further south, or to 

 peculiar genera allied to South American forms. The only sj)ccies 

 not peculiar are, Dolichonyx oryzivorus, a bird of very wide range 

 in America and of migratory habits, which often visits the Ber- 

 mudas 600 miles from North America, — and Asio accipitrinus, an 

 owl which is found almost all over the world. The only genera 

 not exclusively American are Butco and Strix, of each of which 

 a peculiar species occurs in the Galapagos, although very closely 

 allied to South American species. There remain 10 genera, all 

 either American or peculiar to the Galapagos ; and on these we 

 will remark in systematic order. 



1. Mimus, the group of American mocking -thrushes, is re- 

 presented by three distinct and well-marked species, 2. Pen- 

 drceca, an extensive and wide-spread genus of the wood-warblers 

 (Mniotiltidse), is represented by one species, which ranges over 

 the greater part of the archipelago. The genus is especially 

 abundant in Mexico, the Antilles, and the northern parts of 



1 Mr. Salvin, who has critically examined the ornithological fauna of these 

 islands, has kindly corrected my MS. List of the Birds, his valuable paper 

 in the Transactions of the Zoological HocieiAj not having been published m 

 time for me to make use of it. 



