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.
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