SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—D. 389 
An animal is not a piece of clockwork, but as Macdougal has pointed out, 
a centre of active striving. It rises up to meet the environment, and its 
effort alters its growth in every character. 
Mr. H. W. Parkxer.—The herpetological fauna of the Galapagos Archi- 
pelago (3.50). 
A century ago it was the reptiles which gave ‘ the most striking character 
to the zoology of these islands.’ It was not the multiplicity of species, 
but the enormous numbers of individuals and the fact that ‘ the different 
islands . . . are inhabited by a different set of beings’ (Darwin, Fournal 
of Researches) which most impressed Darwin, and the combination of these 
two features, the one implying competition and the other change, first 
suggested the idea of cause and effect—selection and the origin of species. 
This fauna has, in the last hundred years, been decimated ; many of the 
larger species have been completely exterminated, and others have been so 
reduced in numbers that to-day not a dozen specimens exist on islands 
which formerly supported thousands. These larger forms, Giant- 
Tortoises and Iguanid Lizards, have a commercial value, and their des- 
truction is due to direct human action. But the smaller lizards and snakes 
which are of no economic importance have also been seriously affected by 
the commensal animals accidentally or deliberately introduced by man. 
The future of this fauna, so full of historical interest and possibilities for 
research, is bleak indeed ; irreparable damage has already been done and 
only immediate and drastic action can hope to save any fragment of it for 
posterity. 
Dr. P. R. Lowe.—The finches of the Galapagos Islands in relation to 
Darwin’s conception of species (4.10). 
No attempt is made to give a general description of the birds of the 
Galapagos. The very peculiar and interesting condition which exists in 
connection with one group, viz. the Geospizids, or finches. They are the 
dominant group, and the diversity presented by their colouration, colour- 
pattern and external structure far surpasses anything found elsewhere in 
the world either on islands or the mainland masses. 
When Darwin came to work out his collection of birds from the Galapagos 
he was struck with the diversity existing among the finches from the various 
islands and thought that each island had its own peculiar variant. These 
finches are therefore historical in that they inspired Darwin with his ideas 
on the subject of the effects of environment, natural selection, etc., in the 
origin of species. 
But a very different condition exists. ‘There are some twenty islands in 
the Galapagos group, on all of which these finches are found, and on the 
different forms of which no less than sixty-seven specific, or subspecific, 
names have been bestowed by systematists. The most conservative admit 
forty, and their distribution is very remarkable, for some of the islands, as 
for example, James, Charles, and Indefatigable, have as many as ten or 
eleven different forms comprised within their limits; while the little 
Wenman, seventy-eight miles from the nearest point of Albemarle, has 
six (referred by systematists to three genera). Duncan Island, again, with 
an area of only ten square miles, has no less than ten different forms (com- 
prised in five genera) herded together. 
Compared with other insular groups such a condition of things is phe- 
nomenal. It seems clear too, from descriptions published of the various 
