Here almost every product of the land and of the water bears the unmistakable stamp of the American continent.

There are twenty-six land birds.

Of these twenty-one, or perhaps twenty-three, are ranked as distinct species, and would commonly be assumed to have been here created; yet the close affinity of most of these birds to American species is manifest in every character in their habits, gestures, and tones of voice.

So it is with the other animals, and with a large proportion of the plants, as shown by Dr.Hooker in his admirable Flora of this archipelago.

The naturalist, looking at the inhabitants of these volcanic islands in the Pacific, distant several hundred miles from the continent, feels that he is standing on American land.