406 
GALAPAGOS ARCHIPELAGO 
CHAP. 
the wandering habits of the gulls, I was surprised to find that 
the species inhabiting these islands is peculiar, but allied to 
one from the southern parts of South America. The far 
greater peculiarity of the land-birds, namely, twenty-five out of 
twenty-six being new species or at least new races, compared 
with the waders and web-footed birds, is in accordance with 
the greater range which these latter orders have in all parts of 
the world. We shall hereafter see this law of aquatic forms, 
whether marine or fresh water, being less peculiar at any given 
point of the earth’s surface than the terrestrial forms of the 
same classes, strikingly illustrated in the shells, and in a lesser 
degree in the insects of this archipelago. 
Two of the waders are rather smaller than the same species 
brought from other places : the swallow is also smaller, though 
it is doubtful whether or not it is distinct from its analogue. 
The two owls, the two tyrant-flycatchers (Pyrocephalus) and 
the dove, are also smaller than the analogous but distinct 
species, to which they are most nearly related ; on the other 
hand, the gull is rather larger. The two owls, the swallow, all 
three species of mocking-thrush, the dove in its separate colours 
though not in its whole plumage, the Totanus, and the gull, 
are likewise duskier coloured than their analogous species ; 
and in the case of the mocking-thrush and Totanus, than any 
other species of the two genera. With the exception of a 
wren with a fine yellow breast, and of a tyrant-flycatcher with 
a scarlet tuft and breast, none of the birds are brilliantly 
coloured, as might have been expected in an equatorial district. 
Hence it would appear probable that the same causes which 
here make the immigrants of some species smaller, make most 
of the peculiar Galapageian species also smaller, as well as 
very generally more dusky coloured. All the plants have a 
wretched, weedy appearance, and I did not see one beautiful 
flower. The insects, again, are small sized and dull coloured, 
and, as Mr„ Waterhouse informs me, there is nothing in their 
general appearance which would have led him to imagine that 
they had come from under the equator. 1 The birds, plants, 
1 The progress of research has shown that some of these birds, which were then 
thought to be confined to the islands, occur on the American continent. The 
eminent ornithologist, Mr. Sclater, informs me that this is the case with the Strix 
punctatissima and Pyrocephalus nanus ; and probably with the Otus galapagoensis 
and Zenaida galapagoensis : so that the number of endemic birds is reduced to 
