ZOOLOGICAL GEOGEAPHY. 
[part hi. 
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changed under its new conditions of life (the genus Mus not being 
indigenous to the American continent), it is not improbable, as 
Mr. Darwin remarks, that the American mouse may also have 
been imported by man, and have become similarly changed. 
Birds} — Recent researches in the islands have increased the 
number of land-birds to thirty-two, and of wading and aquatic 
birds to twenty-three. All the land birds but two or three are 
peculiar to the islands, and eighteen, or considerably more than 
half, belong to peculiar genera. Of the waders 4 are peculiar, 
and of the swimmers 2. These are a rail ( Porzana spilonota); 
two herons {Butorides plumbea and Nycticorax pauper) ; a 
flamingo (Phcenicopterus glyphorhynchus) ; while the new aquatics 
are a gull [Larus fuliginosus), and a penguin ( Spheniscus mendi- 
culus). 
The land -birds are much more interesting. All except the 
birds of prey belong to American genera which abound on the 
opposite coast or on that of Chili a little further south, or to 
peculiar genera allied to South American forms. The only species 
not peculiar are, Dolichonyx oryzivorus, a bird of very wide range 
in America and of migratory habits, which often visits the Ber- 
mudas 600 miles from North America, — and Asm accipitrinus, an 
owl which is found almost all over the world. The only genera 
not exclusively American are Buteo and Strix, of each of which 
a peculiar species occurs in the Galapagos, although very closely 
allied to South American species. There remain 10 genera, all 
either American or peculiar to the Galapagos ; and on these we 
will remark in systematic order. 
1. Minins, the group of American mocking-thrushes, is re- 
presented by three distinct and well-marked species. 2. Ben- 
dr ceca, an extensive and wide-spread genus of the wood-warblers 
(Mniotiltidee), is represented by one species, which ranges over 
the greater part of the archipelago. The genus is especially 
abundant in Mexico, the Antilles, and the northern parts of 
1 Mr. Salvin, who has critically examined the ornithological fauna of these 
islands, has kindly corrected my MS. List of the Birds, his valuable paper 
in the Transactions of the Zoological Society not having been published in 
time for me to make use of it. 
