et the close affinity of most of these birds to American
species in every character, in their habits, gestures, and tones of voice,
was manifest. So it is with the other animals, and with nearly all the
plants, as shown by Dr. Hooker in his admirable memoir on the Flora of this
archipelago. The naturalist, looking at the inhabitants of these volcanic
islands in the Pacific, distant several hundred miles from the continent,
yet 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 plain a 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
resembles closely 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 climate, height, and size of the islands, between the Galapagos
and Cape de Verde Archipelagos: but what an entire and absolute difference
in their inhabitants! The inhabitants of the Cape de Verde Islands are
related to {399} those of Africa, like those of the Galapagos to America. I
believe this grand fact can receive 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,
whether by occasional means of transport or by formerly continuous land,
from America; and the Cape de Verde Islands from Africa; and that such
colonists would be liable to modification;--the principle of inheritance
still betraying their original birthplace.

Many analogous facts could be given: indeed it is an almost universal rule
that the endemic productions of islands are related to those of the nearest
continent, or of other near islands. The exceptions are few, and most of
them can be explained. Thus the plants of Kerguelen Land, though standing
nearer to Africa than to America, are related, and that very closely, as we
know from Dr. Hooker's account, to those of America: but on the view that
this island has been mainly stocked by seeds brought with earth and stones
on icebergs, drifted by the prevailing currents, this anomaly disappears.