ADDENDA. 



629 



they have of some of the birds, and of the tortoises. With respect to the 

 plants from this Archipelago, Professor Henslow writes to me, that 

 although he has not yet examined them attentively, he finds that " there 

 are several instances of distinct species of the same genus, sent from one 

 island only : that is, whilst the genus is common to two or three islands, 

 the species are often different in the different islands. In some cases the 

 species seem to run very close to each other, but are, I believe, distinct.'^ 

 I may observe that, from my ignorance of botany, I collected more 

 blindly in this department of natural history than in any other ; so that 

 certainly it was not intentionally that I brought the different species from 

 different islands. If, indeed, I at all noticed their resemblance, I probably 

 collected the second and third species as duplicate specimens of the first. 

 It is useless to repeat here my regrets at not having procured a perfect series 

 in every order of nature from the several islands : my excuse must be, the 

 entire novelty of the fact, that islands in sight of each other should be 

 characterized by peculiar faunas : I ought, perhaps, rather to think it 

 fortunate, that sufficient materials were obtained to establish so remark- 

 able a circumstance in the geographical distribution of organic beings, 

 although they are insufficient to determine to what extent the fact holds 

 good. 



Page 477. 



To the two cases of land-birds being extremely tame in islands only 

 lately inhabited by man, I might have added Tristan da Acunha. 

 Captain D. Carmichael {Linn. Transact.^ vol. xii., p. 496), speaking of 

 the thrush and bunting — the only true land-birds — says, " they fly about 

 the cantonment, and are so tame as to suffer themselves to be caught 

 with a hand-net." 



Page 552. 



One of the species of Millepora, which is mentioned as having the 

 property of stinging, is the M. complanata; and the other, I believe, is 

 M. alcicornis. In the Voyage of the Astrolabe (vol. iv., p. 19), an 

 Actinia is said to have this property, and even to infect the water, which 

 it squirts from its mouth. A flexible coralline, allied to Sertularia, was 

 observed (p. 837) at New Ireland to have the same stinging power. 



VOL. III. 



