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. 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.
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