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families,) would have a limited range; but, as is to some extent the case in tropical America east of the Andes, every such group would be represented over the whole area, by countless minute modifications of form adapted to local conditions.

2. One great physical barrier would, however, even then exist; the hot equatorial zone would divide the faunas and floras of the colder regions of the northern and southern hemispheres from any chance of intermixture. This one barrier would be more effectual than it is now, since there would be no lofty mountain ranges to serve as a bridge for the partial interchange of northern and southern forms.

3. If such a condition of the earth as here supposed continued for very long periods, we may conceive that the action and reaction of the various organisms on each other, combined with the influence of very slowly changing physical conditions, would result in an almost perfect organic balance, which would be manifested by a great stability in the average numbers, the local range, and the peculiar characteristics of every species.

4. Under such a condition of things it is not improbable that the total number of clearly differentiated specific forms might be much greater than it is now, though the number of generic and family types might perhaps be less; for dominant species would have had ample time to spread into every locality where they could exist, and would then become every where modified into forms best suited to the permanent local conditions.

5. Now let us consider what would be the probable effect of the introduction of a barrier, cutting off a portion of this homogeneous and well-balanced world. Suppose, for instance, that a subsidence took place, cutting off by a wide arm of the sea a large and tolerably varied island. The first and most obvious. result would be that the individuals of a number of species would be divided into two portions, while others, the limits of whose range agreed approximately with the line of subsidence, would exist in unimpaired numbers on the new island or on the main land. But the species whose numbers were diminished and whose original area was also absolutely diminished by the portion now under the sea, would not be able to hold their

ground against the rival forms whose numbers were intact. Some would probably diminish and rapidly die out; others which produced favourable varieties, might be so modified by natural selection as to maintain their existence under a different form; and such changes would take place in varying modes on the two sides of the new strait.

6. But the progress of these changes would necessarily affect the other species in contact with them. New places would be opened in the economy of nature which many would struggle to obtain; and modification would go on in ever-widening circle and very long periods of time might be required to bring the whole again into a state of equilibrium.

7. A new set of factors would in the meantime have come into play. The sinking of land and the influx of a large body of water could hardly take place without producing important climatal changes. The temperature, the winds, the rains, might all be affected, and more or less changed in duration and amount. This would lead to a quite distinct movement in the organic world. Vegetation would certainly be considerably affected, and through this the insect tribes. We have seen how closely the life of the higher animals is often bound up with that of insects; and thus a set of changes might arise that would modify the numerical proportions, and even the forms and habits of a great number of species, would completely exterminate some, and raise others from a subordinate to a dominant position. And all these changes would occur differently on opposite sides of the strait, since the insular climate could not fail to differ considerably from that of the continent.

8. But the two sets of changes, as above indicated, produced by different modes of action of the same primary cause, would act and react on each other; and thus lead to such a far-spreading disturbance of the organic equilibrium as ultimately perhaps to affect in one way or another, every form of life upon the earth.

This hypothetical case is useful as enabling us better to realize how wide-spreading might be the effects of one of the simplest changes of physical geography, upon a compact mass of mutually

adapted organisms. In the actual state of things, the physical changes that occur and have occurred through all geological epochs are larger and more varied. Almost every mile of land surface has been again and again depressed beneath the ocean; most of the great mountain chains have either originated or greatly increased in height during the Tertiary period; marvellous alterations of climate and vegetation have taken place over half the land-surface of the earth; and all these vast changes have influenced a globe so cut up by seas and oceans, by deserts and snow-clad mountains, that in many of its more isolated land-masses ancient forms of life have been preserved, which, in the more extensive and more varied continents have long given way to higher types. How complex then must have been the actions and reactions such a state of things would bring about; and how impossible must it be for us to guess, in most cases, at the exact nature of the forces that limit the range of some species and cause others to be rare or to become extinct! All that we can in general hope to do is, to trace out, more or less hypothetically, some of the larger changes in physical geography that have occurred during the ages immediately preceeding our own, and to estimate the effect they will probably have produced on animal distribution. We may then, by the aid of such knowledge as to past organic mutations as the geological record supplies us with, be able to determine the probable birthplace and subsequent migrations of the more important genera and families; and thus obtain some conception of that grand series of co-ordinated changes in the earth and its inhabitants, whose final result is seen in the forms and the geographical distribution of existing animals.

CHAPTER IV.

ON ZOOLOGICAL REGIONS.

To the older school of Naturalists the native country of an animal was of little importance, except in as far as climates differed. Animals were supposed to be specially adapted to live in certain zones or under certain physical conditions, and it was hardly recognised that apart from these conditions there was any influence in locality which could materially affect them. It was believed that, while the animals of tropical, temperate, and arctic climates, essentially differed; those of the tropics were essentially alike all over the world. A group of animals was said to inhabit the "Indies;" and important differences of structure were often overlooked from the idea, that creatures equally adapted to live in hot countries and with certain general resemblances, would naturally be related to each other. Thus the Toucans and Hornbills, the Humming-Birds and SunBirds, and even the Tapirs and the Elephants, came to be popularly associated as slightly modified varieties of tropical forms of life; while to naturalists, who were acquainted with the essential differences of structure, it was a never-failing source of surprise, that under climates and conditions so apparently identical, such strangely divergent forms should be produced.

To the modern naturalist, on the other hand, the native country (or "habitat" as it is technically termed) of an animal

or a group of animals, is a matter of the first importance; and, as regards the general history of life upon the globe, may be considered to be one of its essential characters. The structure, affinities, and habits of a species, now form only a part of its natural history. We require also to know its exact range at the present day and in prehistoric times, and to have some knowledge of its geological age, the place of its earliest appearance on the globe, and of the various extinct forms most nearly allied to it. To those who accept the theory of development as worked out by Mr. Darwin, and the views as to the general permanence and immense antiquity of the great continents and oceans so ably developed by Sir Charles Lyell, it ceases to be a matter of surprise that the tropics of Africa, Asia, and America should differ in their productions, but rather that they should have anything in common. Their similarity, not their diversity, is the fact that most frequently puzzles us.

The more accurate knowledge we have of late years obtained of the productions of many remote regions, combined with the greater approaches that have been made to a natural classification of the higher animals, has shown, that every continent or well-marked division of a continent, every archipelago and even every island, presents problems of more or less complexity to the student of the geographical distribution of animals. If we take up the subject from the zoological side, and study any family, order, or even extensive genus, we are almost sure to meet with some anomalies either in the present or past distribution of the various forms. Let us adduce a few examples of these problems.

Deer have a wonderfully wide range, over the whole of Europe, Asia, and North and South America; yet in Africa south of the great desert there are none. Bears range over the whole of Europe, Asia, and North America, and true pigs of the genus Sus, over all Europe and Asia and as far as New Guinea; yet both bears and pigs, like deer, are absent from Tropical and South Africa.

Again, the West Indian islands possess very few Mammalia, all of small size and allied to those of America, except one

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