178 INHABITANTS OF OCEANIC ISLANDS. [Chap. XIII. 



The species of all kinds which inhabit oceanic islands 

 are few in number compared with those on equal con- 

 tinental areas : Alph. de Candolle admits this for 

 plants, and Wollaston for insects. Xew Zealand, for 

 instance, with its lofty mountains and diversified 

 stations, extending over 7S0 miles of latitude, together 

 with the outlying islands of Auckland, Campbell and 

 Chatham, contain altogether only 960 kinds of flower- 

 ing plants ; if we compare this moderate number with 

 the species which swarm over equal areas in South- 

 western Australia or at the Cape of Good Hope, 

 we must admit that some cause, independently of 

 different physical conditions, has given rise to so great 

 a difference in number. Even the uniform county of 

 Cambridge has 847 plants, and the little island of 

 Anglesea 764, but a few ferns and a few introduced 

 plants are included in these numbers, and the com- 

 parison in some other respects is not quite fair. "We 

 have evidence that the barren island of Ascension 

 aboriginally possessed less than half-a-dozen flowering 

 plants ; yet many species have now become naturalised 

 on it, as they have in Xew Zealand and on every other 

 oceanic island which can be named. In St. Helena 

 there is reason to believe that the naturalised plants 

 and animals have nearly or quite exterminated many 

 native productions. He who admits the doctrine of 

 the creation of each separate species, will have to admit 

 that a sufficient number of the best adapted plants and 

 animals were not created for oceanic islands ; for man 

 has unintentionally stocked them far more fully and 

 ctly than did nature. 



Although in oceanic islands the species are few in 

 number, the proportion of endemic kinds (i. c. those 



