Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 7. köide

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Biological Society of Washington, 1893
 

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Page 50 - ... north. But if we now cross over the narrow strait, about fifty miles wide, which separates Florida from the Bahama Islands, we find ourselves in a totally different country, surrounded by a vegetation which is essentially tropical and generally identical with that of Cuba. The change is most striking, because there is no difference of climate, of soil, or apparently of position, to account for it...
Page 51 - Hot countries usually differ widely from cold ones in all their organic forms ; but the difference is by no means constant, nor does it bear any proportion to difference of temperature. Between frigid Canada and sub-tropical Florida there are less marked differences in the animal productions than between Florida and Cuba or Yucatan, so much more alike in climate and so much nearer together.
Page 22 - ... with increased latitude. The BOREAL REGION extends obliquely across the entire continent from New England and Newfoundland to Alaska and British Columbia, and from about latitude 45° north to the Polar Sea, conforming in general direction to the trend of the northern shores of the continent. It recedes to about latitude 54° on the plains of the Saskatchewan, and gives off three long arms or chains of islands, which reach far south along the three great mountain systems of the United States...
Page 20 - Division. A few botanists, influenced by the widely different aspects of nature resulting from the presence or absence of forests, have recognized a ' Prairie Region ', as one of the great floral divisions of North America. It was first proposed by Pickering, in 1830. Pickering named it the 'Louisianian Flora,' and gave its boundaries as the Mississippi on the east and the Rocky Mountains on the west.
Page 53 - ... entirely of West Indian origin, and that the region I shall hereafter circumscribe as semi-tropical Florida does not contain any endemic forms. In other words, the distinctive fauna of southern Florida is a permanent colony of West Indian forms, much more numerous in species than it has hitherto been supposed, the number in Coleoptera alone amounting, according to a very low estimate based upon my collection, to at least three hundred species not yet in our catalogues.
Page 57 - British Columbia and the Cascade Range as well as the Rocky Mountains ; that the mountain sheep is common in the High Sierra in California and ranges northward to the Arctic Circle in Alaska ; leaving the prairie dog as the only one confined to the region. The Pacific or ' Californian subregion ' he defines as " the comparatively narrow strip of country between the Sierra Nevada and the Pacific'.
Page 31 - Wisconsin, and then curves northward over the prairie region of Minnesota, covering the greater parts of North Dakota, Manitoba, and the plains of the Saskatchewan; thence bending abruptly south, it crosses eastern Montana and "Wyoming, including parts of western South Dakota and Nebraska, and forms a belt along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and northern New Mexico, here as elsewhere occupying the interval between the Upper Sonoran and boreal zones. In Wyoming the transition...
Page 22 - American Fauna, No. 5, August, 1891) I went a step further, defining the treeless parts of the "Neutral or Transition zone," and characterizing an " Upper Sonoran zone," as distinguished from the Lower or True Sonoran ; but nothing was said as to the relations of these zones with those long recognized in the East. The time has now arrived, however, when it is possible to correlate the Sonoran zones of the West with corresponding zones in the East, as was done two years ago in the case of the Boreal...
Page 18 - DIVISION. The fauna and flora of the West Indies have been variously interpreted by different writers, some placing the region in South America, others in Mexico, and others still raising it to independent rank. In 1822, Schouw, in mapping the plant areas of the world,placed it in his " Jacquin's realm or realm of cactuses and peppers.
Page 33 - Souorau region are capped with isolated patches of transition or boreal species, according to the temperature to which their summits attain ; and if the elevation is sufficient to secure a boreal fauna and flora, the latter is always separated from * Except one species, which inhabits a limited part of the Sonoran region.

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