EVIDENCES FROM GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION 10g 
referred to three types; the 11 species of Bembidium form a group by 
themselves; and the Heteromera form two groups. “Now, each of 
these types may well be descended from a single species, which origi- 
nally reached the island from some other land; and the great variety 
of generic and specific forms into which some of them have diverged 
is an indication, and to some extent a measure, of the remoteness of 
their origin” [Wallace]. But, on the counter-supposition that all these 
128 peculiar species were separately created to occupy this particular 
island, it is surely unaccountable that they should thus present 
such an arborescence of natural affinities amongst themselves. 
Passing over the rest of the insect fauna, which has not yet been 
sufficiently worked out, we next find that there are only 20 species of 
indigenous land-shells—which is not surprising when we remember by 
what enormous reaches of ocean the land is surrounded. Of these 20 
species no less than 13 have become extinct, three are allied to Euro- 
pean species, while the rest are so highly peculiar as to have no near 
allies in any other part of the globe. So that ‘the land-shells tell 
exactly the same story as the insects. 
Lastly, the plants likewise tell the same story. The truly indige- 
nous flowering plants are about 50 in number, besides 26 ferns. Forty 
of the former and ten of the latter are peculiar to the island, and, as 
Sir Joseph Hooker tells us, “cannot be regarded as very close specific 
allies of any other plants at all.” Seventeen of them belong to peculiar 
genera, and the others all differ so markedly as species from their 
congeners, that not one comes under the category of being an insular 
form of a continental species. So that with respect to its plants, no 
less than with respect to its animals, we find that the island of 
St. Helena constitutes a little world of unique species, allied among 
themselves, but diverging so much from all other known forms that 
in many cases they constitute unique genera. 
Sandwich Islands.—These are an extensive group of islands, 
larger than any we have hitherto considered—the largest of the group 
being about the size of Devonshire. The entire archipelago is vol- 
canic, with mountains rising to a height of nearly 14,000 feet. The 
group is situated in the middle of the North Pacific, at a distance of 
considerably over 2,000 miles from any other land, and surrounded by 
enormous ocean depths. The only terrestrial vertebrates are two 
lizards, one of which constitutes a peculiar genus. There are 24 
aquatic birds, five of which are peculiar; four birds of prey, two 
of which are peculiar; and 16 land-birds, all of which are peculiar. 
