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If, therefore, we except the eighteen marine, the one fresh-water, and one land-shell, which have apparently come here as colonists from the central islands of the Pacific, and likewise the one distinct Pacific species of the Galapageian group of finches, we see that this archipelago, though standing in the Pacific Ocean, is zoologically part of America.
With respect to the terrestrial productions which lived during the Secondary and Palaeozoic periods, it is superfluous to state that our evidence is fragmentary in an extreme degree. For instance, until recently not a land-shell was known belonging to either of these vast periods, with the exception of one species discovered by Sir C. Lyell and Dr.
There were no insects then for the poor bird to feed upon, so it died of starvation and weariness before the day was out; but a little earth that clung in a pellet to one of its feet contained the egg of a land-shell, while the prickly seed of a common Spanish plant was entangled among the winged feathers by its hooked awns.
These European rocks have not yet produced a single land-shell, in spite of the millions of tons of coal annually extracted, and the many hundreds of soils replete with the fossil roots of trees, and the erect trunks and stumps preserved in the position in which they grew.
On the higher parts of the island considerable numbers of a shell, long thought to be a marine species, occur imbedded in the soil. It proves to be a Cochlogena, or land-shell of a very peculiar form; with it I found six other kinds; and in another spot an eighth species.
If, therefore, we except the eighteen marine, the one fresh-water, and one land-shell, which have apparently come here as colonists from the central islands of the Pacific, and likewise the one distinct Pacific species of the Galapageian group of finches, we see that this archipelago, though standing in the Pacific Ocean, is zoologically part of America.
On the higher parts of the island, considerable numbers of a shell, long thought to be a marine species occur imbedded in the soil. It proved to be a Cochlogena, or land-shell of a very peculiar form; with it I found six other kinds; and in another spot an eighth species. It is remarkable that none of them are now found living.
Long. 30, Diam. 15, Apert. 7 mill. This, the giant of its genus, is perhaps the most remarkable land-shell discovered during the voyage. It differs from all other Pupinae in having an unpolished surface. It was found in the South-East Island of the Louisiade Archipelago, under dead leaves chiefly about the roots of trees. Pupina thomsoni. Tab. 3 fig. 2. a, b.
The Bulimi of Chili have been found alive in England in a box packed in cotton after an interval of two years, and the animal inhabiting a land-shell from Suez, which was attached to a tablet and deposited in the British Museum in 1846, was found in 1850 to have formed a fresh epiphragm, and on being immersed in tepid water, it emerged from its shell.
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