CHAP. XIII,] 
THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS. 
273 
The great difference presented by the birds of these islands 
as compared with those of the equally remote Azores and 
Bermudas, is sufficiently explained by the difference of climatal 
conditions. At the Galapagos there are none of those periodic 
storms, gales, and hurricanes which prevail in the North 
Atlantic, and which every year carry some straggling birds of 
Europe or North America to the former islands ; while, at the same 
time, the majority of the tropical American birds are non-migra- 
tory, and thus afford none of the opportunities presented by the 
countless hosts of migrants which pass annually northward and 
southward along the European, and especially along the North 
American coasts. It is strictly in accordance with these different 
conditions that we find in one case an almost perfect identity 
with, and in the other an almost equally complete diversity from, 
the continental species of birds. 
Insects and Land-shells . — The other groups of land-animals 
add little of importance to the facts already referred to. The 
insects are very scanty ; the most plentiful group, the beetles, 
only furnishing about thirty-five species belonging to twenty- 
nine genera and eighteen families. The species are almost all 
peculiar, as are some of the genera. They are mostly small 
and obscure insects, allied either to American or to world-wide 
groups. The Carabidse and the Heteromera are the most abun- 
dant groups, the former furnishing six and the latter eight 
species . 1 
1 The following list of the beetles yet known from the Galapagos shows 
their scanty proportions and accidental character ; the thirty-seven species 
belonging to thirty-one genera and eighteen families. It is taken from 
Mr. Waterhouse’s enumeration in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society 
for 1877 (p. 81):— 
CARABIDiE. 
Feronia calathoides. 
„ insularis. 
„ galapagoensis. 
Amblygnathus obscuricomis. 
Solenophorus galapagoensis. 
Notaphus galapagoensis. 
DYTISCimE. 
Eunectes occidentalis. 
Malacoderms. 
Ablechrus darwinii. 
Corynetes ruiipes. 
Bostrichus unciniatus. 
Lamelljcornes. 
Copris lugubris. 
Oryctes galapagoensis. 
ElATERIDjE. 
Physorhinus galapagoensis. 
T 
