erica, instead of on the true{351} hare-type of
North America, Asia and Africa? Why when borrowing Rodents, and
camel-like animals were formed to tenant the Cordillera, were they
formed on the same type{352} with their representatives on the plains?
Why were the mice, and many birds of different species on the opposite
sides of the Cordillera, but exposed to a very similar climate and soil,
created on the same peculiar S. American type? Why were the plants in
Eastern and Western Australia, though wholly different as species,
formed on the same peculiar Australian types? The generality of the
rule, in so many places and under such different circumstances, makes it
highly remarkable and seems to demand some explanation.

{350} The case of the ostrich (_Rhea_) occurs in the _Origin_, Ed.
i. p. 349, vi. p. 496.

{351} <Note in original.> There is a hare in S. America,--so bad
example.

{352} See _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 349, vi. p. 497.

_Insular Faunas._

If we now look to the character of the inhabitants of small
islands{353}, we shall find that those situated close to other land have
a similar fauna with that land{354}, whilst those at a considerable
distance from other land often possess an almost entirely peculiar
fauna. The Galapagos Archipelago{355} is a remarkable instance of this
latter fact; here almost every bird, its one mammifer, its reptiles,
land and sea shells, and even fish, are almost all peculiar and distinct
species, not found in any other quarter of the world: so are the
majority of its plants. But although situated at the distance of between
500 and 600 miles from the S. American coast, it is impossible to even
glance at a large part of its fauna, especially at the birds, without at
once seeing that they belong to the American type{356}. Hence, in fact,
groups of islands thus circumstanced form merely small but well-defined
sub-divisions of the larger geographical divisions. But the fact is in
such cases far more striking: for taking the Galapagos Archipelago as an
instance; in the first place we must feel convinced, seeing that every
island is wholly volcanic and bristles with craters, that in a
geological sense the whole is of recent origin comparatively with a
continent; and as the species are nearly all peculiar, we must conclude
that they have in the same sense recently been produced on this very
spot; and although in the nature of the soil, and in a lesser degree in
th