The
Water Is Only Three Or Four Inches Deep, And Rests On A Layer
Of Beautifully Crystallized, White Salt.
The lake is quite
circular, and is fringed with a border of bright green succulent
plants; the almost precipitous walls of the crater are clothed
with wood, so that the scene was altogether both picturesque
and curious.
A few years since, the sailors belonging to a
sealing-vessel murdered their captain in this quiet spot; and
we saw his skull lying among the bushes.
During the greater part of our stay of a week, the sky
was cloudless, and if the trade-wind failed for an hour, the
heat became very oppressive. On two days, the thermometer
within the tent stood for some hours at 93 degs.; but in the open
air, in the wind and sun, at only 85 degs. The sand was extremely
hot; the thermometer placed in some of a brown colour
immediately rose to 137 degs., and how much above that
it would have risen, I do not know, for it was not graduated
any higher. The black sand felt much hotter, so that
even in thick boots it was quite disagreeable to walk over it.
The natural history of these islands is eminently curious,
and well deserves attention. Most of the organic productions
are aboriginal creations, found nowhere else; there is even
a difference between the inhabitants of the different islands;
yet all show a marked relationship with those of America,
though separated from that continent by an open space of
ocean, between 500 and 600 miles in width. The archipelago
is a little world within itself, or rather a satellite attached
to America, whence it has derived a few stray colonists, and
has received the general character of its indigenous
productions. Considering the small size of the islands, we feel
the more astonished at the number of their aboriginal beings,
and at their confined range. Seeing every height crowned
with its crater, and the boundaries of most of the lava-
streams still distinct, we are led to believe that within a
period geologically recent the unbroken ocean was here
spread out. Hence, both in space and time, we seem to be
brought somewhat near to that great fact - that mystery of
mysteries - the first appearance of new beings on this earth.
Of terrestrial mammals, there is only one which must be
considered as indigenous, namely, a mouse (Mus Galapagoensis),
and this is confined, as far as I could ascertain, to
Chatham Island, the most easterly island of the group. It
belongs, as I am informed by Mr. Waterhouse, to a division
of the family of mice characteristic of America. At James
Island, there is a rat sufficiently distinct from the common
kind to have been named and described by Mr. Waterhouse;
but as it belongs to the old-world division of the family, and
as this island has been frequented by ships for the last hundred
and fifty years, I can hardly doubt that this rat is
merely a variety produced by the new and peculiar climate,
food, and soil, to which it has been subjected. Although no
one has a right to speculate without distinct facts, yet even
with respect to the Chatham Island mouse, it should be borne
in mind, that it may possibly be an American species imported
here; for I have seen, in a most unfrequented part of
the Pampas, a native mouse living in the roof of a newly
built hovel, and therefore its transportation in a vessel is
not improbable: analogous facts have been observed by Dr.
Richardson in North America.
Of land-birds I obtained twenty-six kinds, all peculiar to
the group and found nowhere else, with the exception of one
lark-like finch from North America (Dolichonyx oryzivorus),
which ranges on that continent as far north as 54 degs., and
generally frequents marshes. The other twenty-five birds
consist, firstly, of a hawk, curiously intermediate in structure
between a buzzard and the American group of carrion-feeding
Polybori; and with these latter birds it agrees most
closely in every habit and even tone of voice. Secondly,
there are two owls, representing the short-eared and white
barn-owls of Europe. Thirdly, a wren, three tyrant-flycatchers
(two of them species of Pyrocephalus, one or both of
which would be ranked by some ornithologists as only varieties),
and a dove - all analogous to, but distinct from, American
species. Fourthly, a swallow, which though differing
from the Progne purpurea of both Americas, only in being
rather duller colored, smaller, and slenderer, is considered
by Mr. Gould as specifically distinct. Fifthly, there are three
species of mocking thrush - a form highly characteristic of
America. The remaining land-birds form a most singular
group of finches, related to each other in the structure of
their beaks, short tails, form of body and plumage: there are
thirteen species, which Mr. Gould has divided into four
sub-groups. All these species are peculiar to this archipelago;
and so is the whole group, with the exception of one species
of the sub-group Cactornis, lately brought from Bow Island,
in the Low Archipelago. Of Cactornis, the two species may
be often seen climbing about the flowers of the great cactus-
trees; but all the other species of this group of finches,
mingled together in flocks, feed on the dry and sterile ground
of the lower districts. The males of all, or certainly of the
greater number, are jet black; and the females (with perhaps
one or two exceptions) are brown. The most curious fact is
the perfect gradation in the size of the beaks in the different
species of Geospiza, from one as large as that of a hawfinch
to that of a chaffinch, and (if Mr. Gould is right in including
his sub-group, Certhidea, in the main group) even to
that of a warbler. The largest beak in the genus Geospiza
is shown in Fig. 1, and the smallest in Fig.
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