feet of birds offer a
more probable method.

ON THE RELATIONS OF THE INHABITANTS OF ISLANDS TO THOSE OF THE NEAREST
MAINLAND.

The most striking and important fact for us is the affinity of the
species which inhabit islands to those of the nearest mainland,
without being actually the same. Numerous instances could be given. The
Galapagos Archipelago, situated under the equator, lies at a distance of
between 500 and 600 miles from the shores of South America. Here almost
every product of the land and of the water bears the unmistakable stamp
of the American continent. There are twenty-six land birds. Of these
twenty-one, or perhaps twenty-three, are ranked as distinct species,
and would commonly be assumed to have been here created; yet the close
affinity of most of these birds to American species is manifest in every
character in their habits, gestures, and tones of voice. So it is with
the other animals, and with a large proportion of the plants, as
shown by Dr. Hooker in his admirable Flora of this archipelago. The
naturalist, looking at the inhabitants of these volcanic islands in the
Pacific, distant several hundred miles from the continent, feels that
he is standing on American land. Why should this be so? Why should
the species which are supposed to have been created in the Galapagos
Archipelago, and nowhere else, bear so plainly the stamp of affinity to
those created in America? There is nothing in the conditions of life, in
the geological nature of the islands, in their height or climate, or in
the proportions in which the several classes are associated together,
which closely resembles the conditions of the South American coast. In
fact, there is a considerable dissimilarity in all these respects. On
the other hand, there is a considerable degree of resemblance in the
volcanic nature of the soil, in the climate, height, and size of the
islands, between the Galapagos and Cape Verde Archipelagos: but what an
entire and absolute difference in their inhabitants! The inhabitants of
the Cape Verde Islands are related to those of Africa, like those of
the Galapagos to America. Facts, such as these, admit of no sort of
explanation on the ordinary view of independent creation; whereas, on
the view here maintained, it is obvious that the Galapagos Islands would
be likely to receive colonists from America, whether by occasional means
of transport or (though I do not believe in this doctrine) by formerly
continuous land,