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 xvii
... Limit to the Range of Mammals ( p . 11 ) -Valleys and Rivers as Barriers to Mamma's ( p . 12 ) —Arms of the Sea as Barriers to Mammals ( p . 13 ) -Ice - floes and drift - wood as aiding the Dispersal of Mammals ( p . 14 ) -Means of ...
... Limit to the Range of Mammals ( p . 11 ) -Valleys and Rivers as Barriers to Mamma's ( p . 12 ) —Arms of the Sea as Barriers to Mammals ( p . 13 ) -Ice - floes and drift - wood as aiding the Dispersal of Mammals ( p . 14 ) -Means of ...
Page 6
... limits of the great forests in most parts of the world strictly determine the ranges of many species . Naturalists have now arrived at the conclusion , that by some slow process of development or transmutation , all animals have 6 ...
... limits of the great forests in most parts of the world strictly determine the ranges of many species . Naturalists have now arrived at the conclusion , that by some slow process of development or transmutation , all animals have 6 ...
Page 8
... limit their range . We have then to consider the effects of changes in physical geography and in climate ; to examine the nature and extent of such changes as have been known to occur ; to determine what others are possible or probable ...
... limit their range . We have then to consider the effects of changes in physical geography and in climate ; to examine the nature and extent of such changes as have been known to occur ; to determine what others are possible or probable ...
Page 11
... limit to its powers of wandering , but the necessity of procuring food and its capacity of enduring changes of ... limits of the forest vegetation . The same may be said of the squirrels , the opossums , the arboreal cats , and the ...
... limit to its powers of wandering , but the necessity of procuring food and its capacity of enduring changes of ... limits of the forest vegetation . The same may be said of the squirrels , the opossums , the arboreal cats , and the ...
Page 12
... limits of the frozen ocean ; but as they live in confinement in temperate countries , their range is probably limited by other conditions than temperature . We must not therefore be too hasty in concluding , that animals which we now ...
... limits of the frozen ocean ; but as they live in confinement in temperate countries , their range is probably limited by other conditions than temperature . We must not therefore be too hasty in concluding , that animals which we now ...
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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 hyænas 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.