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 22
... perhaps of considerable extent ) would be a slow process , and from year to year the change might be hardly perceptible . It is easy to see how the migration that had once taken place over continuous land would be kept up , first over ...
... perhaps of considerable extent ) would be a slow process , and from year to year the change might be hardly perceptible . It is easy to see how the migration that had once taken place over continuous land would be kept up , first over ...
Page 30
... perhaps also by the presence of enemies or the scarcity of proper food . The univalve and bivalve mollusca , of which the whelk and the cockle may be taken as types , move so slowly in their adult state , that we should expect them to ...
... perhaps also by the presence of enemies or the scarcity of proper food . The univalve and bivalve mollusca , of which the whelk and the cockle may be taken as types , move so slowly in their adult state , that we should expect them to ...
Page 32
... perhaps more varied means of dispersal over the globe than any other highly organised animals . Many of them can fly immense distances , and the more delicate ones are liable to be carried by storms and hurricanes over a wide expanse of ...
... perhaps more varied means of dispersal over the globe than any other highly organised animals . Many of them can fly immense distances , and the more delicate ones are liable to be carried by storms and hurricanes over a wide expanse of ...
Page 39
... perhaps contem- poraneous . Sicily and Malta are connected with Africa by a submerged bank from 300 to 1,200 feet below the surface ; while the depth of the Mediterranean , both to the east and west , is enormous , in some parts more ...
... perhaps contem- poraneous . Sicily and Malta are connected with Africa by a submerged bank from 300 to 1,200 feet below the surface ; while the depth of the Mediterranean , both to the east and west , is enormous , in some parts more ...
Page 40
... perhaps assisted to produce it , has been one of the chief agents in determining many of the details of the exist ing distribution of animals in temperate zones . A comparison of the effects produced by existing glaciers with certain ...
... perhaps assisted to produce it , has been one of the chief agents in determining many of the details of the exist ing distribution of animals in temperate zones . A comparison of the effects produced by existing glaciers with certain ...
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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.