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"With respect to the absence of whole orders on oceanic islands, Bory St. Vincent long ago remarked
that...
frogs, toads, [and] newts have never been found on any of the many islands with which
the great oceans are studded.
I have taken pains to verify this assertion, and I have found it
strictly true.... This general absence of frogs, toads, and newts on so many oceanic islands cannot be accounted for by their physical conditions [as environmentalist theories such as Lamarck's would claim]; indeed, it seems that islands are particularly well fitted for these animals; for frogs have been introduced into Madeira, the Azores, and Mauritius, and have multiplied so as to become a nuisance. But as these animals and their spawn are known to be immediately killed by sea-water, on my view we can see that there would be great difficulty in their transportal across the sea, and therefore why they do not exist on any oceanic island. But why, on the theory of creation, they should not have been created there, it would be very difficult to explain." |
| Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species..., p. 392-393 |