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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin: Pacific, and even in the large islands of the Sandwich
archipelago. Mauritius offers an apparent exception, where I
saw the Rana Mascariensis in abundance: this frog is said
now to inhabit the Seychelles, Madagascar, and Bourbon;
but on the other hand, Du Bois, in his voyage in 1669, states
that there were no reptiles in Bourbon except tortoises; and
the Officier du Roi asserts that before 1768 it had been
attempted, without success, to introduce frogs into Mauritius
-- I presume for the purpose of eating: hence it may be well
doubted whether this frog is an aboriginal of these islands.
The absence of the frog family in the oceanic islands is the
The Voyage of the Beagle |
