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THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 193 
one region to the other. But the land birds, as well as 
the reptiles, insects, and plants, are mostly peculiar to 
the islands. The same species are found nowhere else. 
But other species very much like them in all respects 
are found, and these all live along the coast of Peru. 
In the Galapagos Islands, according to Darwin’s notes, 
“there are twenty-six land birds; of these, twenty-one, 
or perhaps twenty-three, are ranked as distinct species, 
and would commonly be assumed to have been here 
created; yet the close affinity of most of these birds to 
American species is manifest in every character, in their 
habits, gestures, and tones of voice. So it is with the 
other animals and with a large proportion of the plants. 
... The naturalist, looking at the inhabitants of these 
volcanic islands in the Pacific, feels that he is standing 
on American land.” 
This question naturally arises: If these species have 
been created as we find them on the Galapagos, why is 
it that they should all be very similar in type to other 
animals, ving under wholly different conditions, but on a 
coast not far away? And, again, why are the ani- 
mals and plants of another cluster of volcanic islands— 
the Cape Verde Islands—similarly related to those of 
the neighbouring coast of Africa, and wholly unlike 
those of the Galapagos? If the animals were created 
to match their conditions of life, then those of the 
Galapagos should be like those of Cape Verde, the two 
archipelagoes being extremely alike in soil, climate, and 
physical surroundings. If the species on the islands 
are products of separate acts of creation, what is there 
in the nearness of the coasts of Africa or Peru to in- 
fluence the act of creation so as to cause the island 
species to be, as it were, echoes of those on shore ? 
If, on the other hand, we should adopt the obvious 
suggestion that both these clusters of islands have been 
