GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, an archipelago in the Pacific, consisting of 12 large and several hundred small islands on the equator, 65o m. due W. of Ecuador, to which country they be long. They were discovered by the Spaniards early in the 16th century, but only three islands have ever been utilized; these chiefly as convict stations. At various times they have been visited by British ships of war, New England whalers, pirates, buccaneers and numerous scientific expeditions. Charles Darwin, when on the voyage of the Beagle, obtained from the insular forms of Galapagos finches valuable data for his "Origin of Species." The English names of the major islands are Albemarle, Indefatigable, James, Narborough, Charles, Chatham, Hood, Bar rington, Duncan, Tower, Bindelow and Abington. Albemarle is irregular in shape but most of the others are roughly circular, with a single high crater in the centre. Albemarle is the largest, 75 m. in length, and in 1925 broke into eruption. Since then the craters of Narborough have been active. The shores of the islands are low, while in the interior, craters may rise to an extreme height of 5,000 feet. The coast shows an alternation of dense mangroves, beaches of white sand and rugged cliffs of grey lava. Very little rain falls near the sea, where the vegetation is semi-desert, chiefly cactus and thorn-trees. The luxuriance increases on the uplands where the moisture becomes more general. The Antarctic Hum boldt current keeps the temperature of the surrounding water well below equatorial average.
The name is derived from the Spanish galapago, a tortoise, and refers to the giant forms which have evolved on the islands. Some of these have reached a length of 4 ft. or more, weighing nearly 400 lb., and individuals perhaps attain an age of 30o to 400 years, making them the oldest living animals on the earth. In past years almost every island had its peculiar species of tor toise, but they are now on the verge of extinction. This has been due to the carrying away of thousands, by whalers, for food, to the slaughter of great numbers for their oil and the wholesale de vouring of eggs and young by wild dogs and pigs. A remarkable fact about the Galapagos fauna is the large proportion of forms peculiar to the islands, namely, 37% of all the species of shore fish, 4o% of the plants and 96% of the reptiles. But the amount of zoological work remaining to be done is indicated by a collection of moths brought back by one of the most recent ex peditions, of which half of the 52 species were new to science.
The virtual absence of mankind since the times of the buc caneers has resulted in a remarkable absence of fear on the part of all forms of native animal life. In fact the only really wild creatures are the dogs, cats, pigs, goats and donkeys which have been wrecked or intentionally left on the islands in past years. The sea-lions, which are abundant and astonishingly tame, are of southern derivation, doubtless via the Humboldt current. Besides small lizards and snakes there are two large iguana-like lizards, one marine and feeding on algae, and both showing many primitive characters. Fifteen species of giant tortoises formerly inhabited the islands and 85 kinds of birds have been recorded. Of special interest are the flamingos which breed on James island, and the flightless cormorants with diminutive wings which are found only near Albemarle ; but it is doubtful if there are more than half a hundred of these adult cormorants left in existence to-day. The small black finches exhibit amazing variation, some having bills heavier and thicker than a grosbeak's, while in others the mandibles are as slender as those of a warbler.
The dominant theory of the formation of these islands, first sponsored by Darwin, is that they have always been isolated both from one another and from the mainland, the gradual stocking being by accidental arrivals. Important evidence is accumulating, however, that at one time the submerged plateau which connects the archipelago with Central America was dry land. For instance, except for the penguins (which even to-day could easily swim from Peru along the Antarctic Humboldt current) every species of native bird shows closer relations with Central than with South America, and much the same is true of other groups such as the shore fish and land plants, while the nearest relations of the giant tortoises are found fossil in Cuba. If the stocking' of the Galapagos with living creatures had been by adventitious arrivals, they could only have come by the southern current which turns westward at the latitude of Peru. There seems little doubt that the archipelago was at one time a single island. Further more, the presence of five forms of tortoises on Albemarle hints that formerly this island was more deeply submerged, so that only its five major craters were above water. The results of the many scientific expeditions which have visited the islands are indicated in the accompanying selected bibliography. The most recent are those sent out by the New York Zoological Society, two under the direction of William Beebe and the last under C. H. Town send. The latter was successful in bringing back over 200 tor toises from Albemarle for distribution to various favourable situa tions, where efforts will be made to breed them and save the race from extinction.