oon Darwin, and after Darwin. 
in South Africa; but it is specifically distinct, and 
therefore peculiar to the island. The insect life, on 
the other hand, is abundant. Of beetles no less than 
129 species are believed to be aboriginal, and, with 
one single exception, the whole number are peculiar 
to the island. “But in addition to this large amount 
of specific peculiarity (perhaps unequalled anywhere 
else in the world), the beetles of this island are 
remarkable for their generic isolation, and for the 
altogether exceptional proportion in which the great 
divisions of the order are represented. The species 
belong to 39 genera, of which no less than 25 are 
peculiar to the island ; and many of these are such 
isolated forms that it is impossible to find their 
allies in any particular country.” More than two- 
thirds of all the species belong to the group of 
weevils—a circumstance which serves to explain the 
great wealth of beetle-population, the weevils being 
beetles which live in wood, and St. Helena having 
been originally a densely wooded island. This cir- 
cumstance is also in accordance with the view that 
the peculiar insect fauna has been in large part 
evolved from ancestors which reached the island by 
means of floating timber ; for, of course, no explana- 
tion can be suggested why special creation of this 
highly peculiar insect fauna should have run so dis- 
proportionately into the production of weevils. About 
two-thirds of the whole number of beetles, or over 
80 species, show no close affinity with any existing 
insects, while the remaining third have some rela- 
tions, though often very remote, with European and 
African forms. That this high degree of peculiarity 
} Wallace, /sland Life, p. 287. 
