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Article: Twilight in paradise
- Article from:
- The Spectator
- Article date:
- November 2, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Spectator Nov 2, 1996. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Darwin when he saw his first kangaroo wondered if the Pacific might not hide 'a second creation'. Dr Sacks in his book The Island of the Colour Blind remarks how he was `strangely pleased' when he read Darwin's phrase:
Islands were, so to speak, experiments of nature, places blessed or cursed by geographic singularity to harbour unique forms of life: the aye-ayes and pottos, the lorises and lemurs of Madagascar; the great tortoises of the Galapagos, the giant flightless birds of New Zealand - all singular species or genera which had taken a separate evolutionary path in their isolated habitats. Sacks takes us there to look, but being a neurologist he does not look for weird animals but ...