The Botany Of This Group Is Fully As Interesting As The
Zoology.
Dr. J. Hooker will soon publish in the "Linnean
Transactions" a full account of the Flora, and I am much
indebted to him for the following details.
Of flowering
plants there are, as far as at present is known, 185 species,
and 40 cryptogamic species, making altogether 225; of this
number I was fortunate enough to bring home 193. Of the
flowering plants, 100 are new species, and are probably confined
to this archipelago. Dr. Hooker conceives that, of the
plants not so confined, at least 10 species found near the
cultivated ground at Charles Island, have been imported.
It is, I think, surprising that more American species have
not been introduced naturally, considering that the distance
is only between 500 and 600 miles from the continent, and
that (according to Collnet, p. 58) drift-wood, bamboos, canes,
and the nuts of a palm, are often washed on the south-eastern
shores. The proportion of 100 flowering plants out of 183
(or 175 excluding the imported weeds) being new, is sufficient,
I conceive, to make the Galapagos Archipelago a distinct
botanical province; but this Flora is not nearly so
peculiar as that of St. Helena, nor, as I am informed by
Dr. Hooker, of Juan Fernandez. The peculiarity of the
Galapageian Flora is best shown in certain families; - thus
there are 21 species of Compositae, of which 20 are peculiar
to this archipelago; these belong to twelve genera, and of
these genera no less than ten are confined to the archipelago!
Dr. Hooker informs me that the Flora has an undoubtedly
Western American character; nor can he detect in it any
affinity with that of the Pacific. If, therefore, we except the
eighteen marine, the one fresh-water, and one land-shell,
which have apparently come here as colonists from the
central islands of the Pacific, and likewise the one distinct
Pacific species of the Galapageian group of finches, we see
that this archipelago, though standing in the Pacific Ocean,
is zoologically part of America.
If this character were owing merely to immigrants from
America, there would be little remarkable in it; but we see
that a vast majority of all the land animals, and that more
than half of the flowering plants, are aboriginal productions
It was most striking to be surrounded by new birds, new
reptiles, new shells, new insects, new plants, and yet by
innumerable trifling details of structure, and even by the tones
of voice and plumage of the birds, to have the temperate plains
of Patagonia, or rather the hot dry deserts of Northern Chile,
vividly brought before my eyes. Why, on these small points
of land, which within a late geological period must have
been covered by the ocean, which are formed by basaltic lava,
and therefore differ in geological character from the American
continent, and which are placed under a peculiar climate,
- why were their aboriginal inhabitants, associated, I may
add, in different proportions both in kind and number from
those on the continent, and therefore acting on each other
in a different manner - why were they created on American
types of organization? It is probable that the islands of the
Cape de Verd group resemble, in all their physical conditions,
far more closely the Galapagos Islands, than these latter
physically resemble the coast of America, yet the aboriginal
inhabitants of the two groups are totally unlike; those of the
Cape de Verd Islands bearing the impress of Africa, as
the inhabitants of the Galapagos Archipelago are stamped
with that of America.
I have not as yet noticed by far the most remarkable feature
in the natural history of this archipelago; it is, that
the different islands to a considerable extent are inhabited by
a different set of beings. My attention was first called to
this fact by the Vice-Governor, Mr. Lawson, declaring that
the tortoises differed from the different islands, and that he
could with certainty tell from which island any one was
brought. I did not for some time pay sufficient attention
to this statement, and I had already partially mingled together
the collections from two of the islands. I never
dreamed that islands, about 50 or 60 miles apart, and most of
them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same
rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to a nearly
equal height, would have been differently tenanted; but we
shall soon see that this is the case. It is the fate of most
voyagers, no sooner to discover what is most interesting in
any locality, than they are hurried from it; but I ought,
perhaps, to be thankful that I obtained sufficient materials to
establish this most remarkable fact in the distribution of
organic beings.
The inhabitants, as I have said, state that they can distinguish
the tortoises from the different islands; and that
they differ not only in size, but in other characters. Captain
Porter has described [5] those from Charles and from the nearest
island to it, namely, Hood Island, as having their shells
in front thick and turned up like a Spanish saddle, whilst
the tortoises from James Island are rounder, blacker, and
have a better taste when cooked. M. Bibron, moreover,
informs me that he has seen what he considers two distinct
species of tortoise from the Galapagos, but he does not know
from which islands. The specimens that I brought from
three islands were young ones: and probably owing to this
cause neither Mr. Gray nor myself could find in them any
specific differences. I have remarked that the marine
Amblyrhynchus was larger at Albemarle Island than elsewhere;
and M. Bibron informs me that he has seen two distinct
aquatic species of this genus; so that the different
islands probably have their representative species or races
of the Amblyrhynchus, as well as of the tortoise. My attention
was first thoroughly aroused, by comparing together
the numerous specimens, shot by myself and several other
parties on board, of the mocking-thrushes, when, to my
astonishment, I discovered that all those from Charles Island
belonged to one species (Mimus trifasciatus) all from
Albemarle Island to M. parvulus; and all from James and
Chatham Islands (between which two other islands are situated,
as connecting links) belonged to M. melanotis.
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