We Have, Therefore, In This Quarter
Of The World, Three Great Conchological Sea-Provinces, Quite
Distinct, Though Surprisingly Near Each Other, Being Separated
By Long North And South Spaces Either Of Land Or Of
Open Sea.
I took great pains in collecting the insects, but excepting
Tierra del Fuego, I never saw in this respect so poor a country.
Even in the upper and damp region I procured very few,
excepting some minute Diptera and Hymenoptera, mostly of
common mundane forms.
As before remarked, the insects,
for a tropical region, are of very small size and dull colours.
Of beetles I collected twenty-five species (excluding a
Dermestes and Corynetes imported, wherever a ship touches);
of these, two belong to the Harpalidae, two to the
Hydrophilidae, nine to three families of the Heteromera, and the
remaining twelve to as many different families. This
circumstance of insects (and I may add plants), where few in
number, belonging to many different families, is, I believe,
very general. Mr. Waterhouse, who has published [4] an
account of the insects of this archipelago, and to whom I am
indebted for the above details, informs me that there are
several new genera: and that of the genera not new, one
or two are American, and the rest of mundane distribution.
With the exception of a wood-feeding Apate, and of one or
probably two water-beetles from the American continent,
all the species appear to be new.
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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 313 of 402
Words from 161651 to 162181
of 208183
