276 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[part it. 
birds, and other animals, as we find to be the case in many 
small and remote islands. 1 
Flora of the Galapagos . — The plants of these islands are so 
much more numerous than the known animals, even including 
the insects, they have been so carefully studied by eminent 
botanists, and their relations throw so much light on the past 
history of the group, that no apology is needed for giving a 
brief outline of the peculiarities and affinities of the flora. The 
statements we shall make on this subject will be taken from the 
Memoir of Sir Joseph Hooker in the Linncean Transactions for 
1 Juan Fernandez is a good example of a small island which, with time 
and favourable conditions, has acquired a tolerably rich and highly peculiar 
flora and fauna. It is situated in 84° S. Lat., 400 miles from the coast 
of Chile, and so far as facilities for the transport of living organisms are 
concerned is by no means in a favourable position, for the ocean-currents 
come from the south-west in a direction where there is no land but the 
Antarctic continent, and the prevalent winds are also westerly. No doubt, 
however, there are occasional storms, and there may have been intermediate 
islands, but its chief advantages are, no doubt, its antiquity and its varied 
surface, offering many chances for the preservation and increase of what- 
ever plants and animals have chanced to reach it. The island consists of 
basalt, greenstone, and other ancient rocks, and though only about twelve 
miles long its mountains are three thousand feet high. Enjoying a moist 
and temperate climate it is especially adapted to the growth of ferns, which 
are very abundant ; and as the spores of these plants are as fine as dust, 
and very easily carried for enormous distances by winds, it is not surprising 
that there are twenty-four species on the island, while the remote period 
when they first received their vegetation may be indicated by the fact 
that four of the species are quite peculiar. The same general character 
pervades the whole flora and fauna. For so small an island it is rich, 
containing a considerable number of flowering plants, four true land-birds, 
about fifty species of insects, and twenty of land-shells. Almost all these 
belong to South American genera, and a large proportion are South American 
species ; but several of the plants and insects, half the birds, and the whole 
of the land-shells are peculiar. This seems to indicate that the means of 
transmission were formerly greater than they are now, and that in the case 
of land-shells none have been introduced for so long a period that all have 
become modified into distinct forms, or have been preserved on the island 
while they have become extinct on the continent. — For a detailed examina- 
tion of the causes which have led to the modification of the humming- 
birds of Juan Fernandez see the author’s Tropical Nature , p. 140 ; while 
a general account of the fauna of the island is given in his Geographical 
Distribution of Animals, Vol. II. p. 49. 
