Page - 438 - in The Origin of Species

438 ORIGIN OF SPECIES of all kinds undergo partly depends on the lapse of time, and as the islands which are separated from each other or from the mainland by shallow channels, are more likely to have been continuously united within a recent period than the islands sepiarated by deeper channels, we can understand how it is that a relation exists between the depth of the sea sep- arating two mammalian faunas, and the degree of their affinity, —a relation which is quite inexplicable on the theory of independent acts of creation. The foregoing statements in regard to the inhabitants of oceanic islands,—namely, the fewness of the species, with a large proportion consisting of endemic forms—the members of certain groups, but not those of other groups in the same class, having been modified—the absence of certain whole orders, as of batrachians and of terrestrial mammals, not- withstanding the presence of aerial bats,—the singular pro- portions of certain orders of plants,—herbaceous forms having been developed into trees, &c.,—seem to me to accord better with the belief in the efficiency of occasional means of transport, carried on during a long course of time, than with the belief in the former connection of all oceanic islands with the nearest continent; for on this latter view it is probable that the various classes would have immigrated more uni- formly, and from the species having entered in a body their mutual relations would not have been much disturbed, and consequently they would either have not been modified, or all the species in a more equable manner. I do not deny that there are many and serious difficulties in understanding how many of the inhabitants of the more remote islands, whether still retaining the same specific form or subsequently modified, have reached their present homes. But the probability of other islands having once existed as halting-places, of which not a wreck now remains, must not be overlooked. I will specify one difficult case. Almost all oceanic islands, even the most isolated and smallest, are in- habited by land-shells, generally by endemic species, but sometimes by species found elsewhere,—striking instances of which have been given by Dr. A. A. Gould in relation to the Pacific. Now it is notorious that land-shells are easily killed by sea-water ; their eggs, at least such as I have tried, sink in