Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.3)

ADDENDA. 629 they have of some of the birds, and of the tortoises. With respect to the plants from this Archipelago, Professor Henslow writes to me, that although he has not yet examined them attentively, he finds that " there are several instances of distinct species of the same genus, sent from one island only : that is, whilst the genus is common to two or three islands, the species are often different in the different islands. In some cases the species seem to run very close to each other, but are, I believe, distinct." I may observe that, from my ignorance of botany, I collected more blindly in this department of natural history than in any other ; so that certainly it was not intentionally/ that I brought the different species from different islands. If, indeed, I at all noticed their resemblance, I probably collected the second and third species as duplicate specimens of the first. It is useless to repeat here my regrets at not having procured a perfect series in every order of nature from the several islands : my excuse must be, the entire novelty of the fact, that islands in sight of each other should be characterized by peculiar faunas : I ought, perhaps, rather to think it fortunate, that sufficient materials were obtained to establish so remark- able a circumstance in the geographical distribution of organic beings, although they are insufficient to determine to what extent the fact holds good. Page 477. To the two cases of land-birds being extremely tame in islands only lately inhabited by man, I might have added Tristan da Acunha. Captain D. Carmichael (Linn. Transact., vol. xii., p. 496), speaking of the thrush and bunting — the only true land-birds— says, " they fly about the cantonment, and are so tame as to suffer themselves to be caught with a hand-net." Page 532. One of the species of Millepora, which is mentioned as having the property of stinging, is the M. complanata ; and the other, I believe, is M. alcicornis. In the Voyage of the Astrolabe (vol. iv., p. 19), an Actinia is said to have this property, and even to infect the water, which it squirts from its mouth. A flexible coralline, aUied to Sertularia, was observed (p. 337) at New Ireland to haVe the same stinging power. VOL. III. Q***