BRITISH ISLES.

NON-PECULIAR SPECIES.

+---------+---------+----------+-----------+---------+---------+
| | Land | | Reptiles | Land | Land |
| Plants. | Shells. | Insects. | and | Birds. | Mammals.|
| | | | Amphibia. | | |
+---------+---------+----------+-----------+---------+---------+
| 1462 | 83 | 12,551 | 13 | 130 | 40 |
+---------+---------+----------+-----------+---------+---------+

PECULIAR SPECIES.
+---------+---------+----------+-----------+---------+---------+
| | Land | | Reptiles | Land | Land |
| Plants. | Shells. | Insects. | and | Birds. | Mammals.|
| | | | Amphibia. | | |
+---------+---------+----------+-----------+---------+---------+
| 46 | 4 | 149 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
+---------+---------+----------+-----------+---------+---------+

Total Peculiar Plants 46
Total Peculiar Animals 154
----
Grand Total 200

I have drawn up this table in the most liberal manner possible,
including as peculiar species forms which many naturalists regard as
merely local varieties. But, even as thus interpreted, how wonderful is
the contrast between the 1000 islands of Great Britain and the single
volcanic rock of St. Helena, where almost all the animals and about half
the plants are peculiar, instead of about 1/80 of the animals, and 1/30
of the plants. Of course, if no peculiar species of any kind had
occurred in the British Isles, advocates of special creation might have
argued that it was, so to speak, needless for the Divinity to have added
any new species to those European forms which fully populated the
islands at the time when they were separated from the continent. But, as
the matter stands, advocates of special creation must face the fact that
a certain small number of new and peculiar species have been formed on
the British Isles; and, therefore, that creative activity has not been
wholly suspended in their case. Why, then, has it been so meagre in this
case of a thousand islands, when it has proved so profuse in the case of
all single islands more remote from mainlands, and presenting a higher
antiquity? Or why should the Divinity have thus appeared so unifo