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.
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