Considering
The Wandering Habits Of The Gulls, I Was Surprised To
Find That The Species Inhabiting These Islands Is Peculiar,
But
allied to one from the southern parts of South America.
The far greater peculiarity of the land-birds, namely,
Twenty-five out of twenty-six, being new species, or at least
new races, compared with the waders and web-footed birds, is
in accordance with the greater range which these latter
orders have in all parts of the world. We shall hereafter
see this law of aquatic forms, whether marine or fresh-water,
being less peculiar at any given point of the earth's
surface than the terrestrial forms of the same classes,
strikingly illustrated in the shells, and in a lesser degree in
the insects of this archipelago.
Two of the waders are rather smaller than the same species
brought from other places: the swallow is also smaller,
though it is doubtful whether or not it is distinct from its
analogue. The two owls, the two tyrant-catchers (Pyrocephalus)
and the dove, are also smaller than the analogous
but distinct species, to which they are most nearly related;
on the other hand, the gull is rather larger. The two owls,
the swallow, all three species of mocking-thrush, the dove
in its separate colours though not in its whole plumage, the
Totanus, and the gull, are likewise duskier coloured than
their analogous species; and in the case of the mocking-
thrush and Totanus, than any other species of the two genera.
With the exception of a wren with a fine yellow breast,
and of a tyrant-flycatcher with a scarlet tuft and breast, none
of the birds are brilliantly coloured, as might have been
expected in an equatorial district.
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