The Geographical Distribution of Animals: With a Study of the Relations of Living and Extinct Faunas as Elucidating the Past Changes of the Earth's Surface, 1. köideHarper and brothers, 1876 - 503 pages |
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Page 12
... feet , where it has been seen leaping among fir - trees loaded with snow - wreaths ! Some northern animals are bounded by the isothermal of 32 ° . Such are the polar bear and the walrus , which cannot live in a state of nature far ...
... feet , where it has been seen leaping among fir - trees loaded with snow - wreaths ! Some northern animals are bounded by the isothermal of 32 ° . Such are the polar bear and the walrus , which cannot live in a state of nature far ...
Page 18
... feet , and descend again in winter . Wolves everywhere descend from the mountains to the lowlands in severe weather . In dry seasons great herds of antelopes move southwards towards the Cape of Good Hope . The well - known lemmings , in ...
... feet , and descend again in winter . Wolves everywhere descend from the mountains to the lowlands in severe weather . In dry seasons great herds of antelopes move southwards towards the Cape of Good Hope . The well - known lemmings , in ...
Page 28
... feet elevation in the Alps . Some inhabit deserts , others swamps and marshes , while many are adapted for a life in forests . They swim rivers easily , but apparently have no means of passing the sea , since they are very rarely found ...
... feet elevation in the Alps . Some inhabit deserts , others swamps and marshes , while many are adapted for a life in forests . They swim rivers easily , but apparently have no means of passing the sea , since they are very rarely found ...
Page 31
... the sea , and this is probably one of the most effectual modes of their dispersal . Very young shells would also some- times attach themselves to the feet of birds walking or CHAP . II . ] 31 LAND - SHELLS AND INSECTS .
... the sea , and this is probably one of the most effectual modes of their dispersal . Very young shells would also some- times attach themselves to the feet of birds walking or CHAP . II . ] 31 LAND - SHELLS AND INSECTS .
Page 32
... feet of birds walking or resting on the ground , and as many of the waders often go far inland , this may have been one of the methods of distributing species of land shells ; for it must always be remembered that nature can afford to ...
... feet of birds walking or resting on the ground , and as many of the waders often go far inland , this may have been one of the methods of distributing species of land shells ; for it must always be remembered that nature can afford to ...
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Common terms and phrases
absence abundant Abyssinia affinities Africa and Madagascar allied Amphibia animals antelopes arctic Asia Austral Australian region beetles belong birds Borneo Burmah Carnivora Celebes Central Ceylon characteristic China climate Coleoptera confined Cosmopolite Cosmopolite Cosmopolite deposits desert distribution district east Eocene epoch Ethiopian Ethiopian region European excl existing extend families fauna forests Formosa genera genus geographical globe groups Guinea Himalayas hy¿nas India inhabit Insectivora insects islands Java land large number less lizards Machairodus Madagascar Madeira Malacca Malay Malaya Malayan mammalia migration Miocene Miocene period Moluccas mountains Nearctic Neotropical North northern occur ocean Oriental genus Oriental region Palearctic Palearctic region Papuan peculiar forms peculiar genera peculiar genus peculiar species perhaps Philippines Pliocene possesses Post-Pliocene probably range regions but Australian remarkable represented reptiles rhinoceros South America southern sub-region Sumatra tapir Tasmania temperate Tertiary Thibet Timor Tropical Africa tropical regions types Ungulata West Africa whole region wholly Zealand zoological regions
Popular passages
Page 150 - Yet it is surely a marvellous fact, and one that has hardly been sufficiently dwelt upon, this sudden dying out of so many large mammalia, not in one place only but over half the land surface of the globe.
Page 37 - Straits, so that it is possible to go from Cape Horn to Singapore or the Cape of Good Hope without ever being out of sight of land ; and owing to the intervention of the numerous islands of the Malay Archipelago the journey might be continued under the same conditions as far as Melbourne and Hobart...
Page 402 - Temperate South America ; while another species is common to New Zealand and the Auckland Islands. We cannot believe that a land connection has existed between all these remote lands within the period of existence of this one species of fish, not only on account of what we know of the permanence of continents and deep oceans, but because such a connection must have led to much more numerous and important cases of similarity of natural productions than we actually find. And if within the life of species...
Page 50 - 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." That certain divisions, or "regions," bounded by distinct lines of demarcation, exist to represent the natural method of distribution of animals or plants on the earth's surface, is a fact readily provable....
Page 57 - Eegions in the first place, from a consideration of the distribution of mammalia, only bringing to our aid the distribution of other groups to determine doubtful points. Regions so established will be most closely in accordance with those long-enduring features of physical geography, on which the distribution of all forms of life fundamentally depends;* and all discrepancies in the distribution of other classes of animals must be capable of being explained, either...
Page 67 - ... who cannot recognize the essential diversity of structure in such groups as swifts and swallows, sun-birds and humming-birds, under the superficial disguise caused by adaptation to a similar mode of life. The application of Mr. Allen's principle leads to equally erroneous results, as may be well seen by considering his separation of 'the southern third of Australia' to unite it with New Zealand as one of his secondary zoological divisions."t Leaving Mr.
Page 44 - The introduction of goats into St. Helena utterly destroyed a whole flora of forest trees, and with them all the insects, mollusca, and perhaps birds directly or indirectly dependent on them.
Page 290 - The enormous disproportion between the mean height of the land and the mean depth of the ocean, which would render it very difficult for new land to reach the surface till long after the total submergence of the sinking continent. (2) The wonderful uniformity of level over by far the greater part of the ocean floor, which indicates that it is not subject to the same disturbing agencies which...
Page 76 - is undoubtedly a legitimate and highly probable supposition, and it is an example of the way in which a study of the geographical distribution of animals may enable us to reconstruct the geography of a bygone age. ... It...
Page 400 - It is important here to notice that the heat-loving Reptilia afford hardly any indications of close affinity between the two regions, while the cold-enduring amphibia and fresh-water fish offer them in abundance.