_Birds._[2]--Recent researches in the islands have increased the number of land-birds to thirty-two, and of wading and aquatic birds to twenty-three. All the land birds but two or three are peculiar to the islands, and eighteen, or considerably more than half, belong to peculiar genera. Of the waders 4 are peculiar, and of the swimmers 2. These are a rail (_Porzana spilonota_); two herons (_Butorides plumbea_ and _Nycticorax pauper_); a flamingo (_Phoenicopterus glyphorhynchus_); while the new aquatics are a gull (_Larus fuliginosus)_, and a penguin (_Spheniscus mendiculus_). The land-birds are much more interesting. All except the birds of prey belong to American genera which abound on the opposite coast or on that of Chili a little further south, or to peculiar genera allied to South American forms. The only _species_ not peculiar are, _Dolichonyx oryzivorus_, a bird of very wide range in America and of migratory habits, which often visits the Bermudas 600 miles from North America,--and _Asio accipitrinus_, an owl which is found almost all over the world. The only genera not exclusively American are _Buteo_ and _Strix_, of each of which a peculiar species occurs in the Galapagos, although very closely allied to South American species. There remain 10 genera, all either American or peculiar to the Galapagos; and on these we will remark in systematic order. 1. _Mimus_, the group of American mocking-thrushes, is represented by three distinct and well-marked species. 2. _Dendroeca_, an extensive and wide-spread genus of the wood-warblers (Mniotiltidæ), is represented by one species, which ranges over the greater part of the archipelago. The genus is especially abundant in Mexico, the Antilles, and the northern parts of {31}tropical America, only one species extending south as far as Chili. 3. _Certhidea_, a peculiar genus originally classed among the finches, but which Mr. Sclater, who has made South American birds his special study, considers to belong to the _Coerebidæ_, or sugar-birds, a family which is wholly tropical. Two species of this genus inhabit separate islands. 4. _Progne_, the American martins (Hirundinidæ), is represented by a peculiar species. 5. _Geospiza_, a peculiar genus of finches, of which no less than eight species occur in the archipelago, but not more than four in any one island. 6. _Camarhynchus_ (6 sp.) and 7. _Cactornis_ (4 sp.) are two other peculiar genera of finches; some of the species of which are confined to single islands, while others inhabit several. 8. _Pyrocephalus_, a genus of the American family of tyrant-flycatchers (Tyrannidæ), has one peculiar species closely allied to _T. rubineus_, which has a wide range in South America. 9. _Myiarchus_, another genus of the same family which does not range further south than western Ecuador, has also a representative species found in several of the islands. 10. _Zenaida_, an American genus of