GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS
modified immigrants are the little brocket of Chili and the Pampas deer of Patagonia, whereas the deer of the Guianas is a later arrival and differs but little from the deer of Florida. The wolves, bush dogs, skunks, coati mundis, etc., are obvious variants of northern types. Even the lack of certain animals in North America is reflected in South America, as, for instance, in the almost complete absence of bears, which reached North America from the Old World at a very late period.
Before the geology of the Isthmus of Panama was known, Messrs. Jordan and Evermann made a comparative study of the sea fishes on both sides of the Isthmus. The difference was so great that these authors concluded that the two seas had been separated by the upheaval of land in the middle of the Tertiary period (Miocene epoch), a result which was exactly confirmed by subsequent geological examination.
The geological and palaeontological history of North and South America in Tertiary time is known in greater fullness than that of most other continents, and it explains in a very satisfactory way the existing distribution of mammals in the Western Hemisphere, but only to one who believes the evolutionary theory. Otherwise, that history has no meaning or application, for the existing species are different from those which we find entombed in the rocks, and if they were not descended from the more ancient ones but created separately, then the history has no relation to the present arrangement of the animals. Can any one really believe that successive acts of creation were deliberately arranged so as to produce a false and illusory effect? Absurd as it may seem, such a belief is involved in the acceptance of the doctrine of special creation.
North America and Asia have been repeatedly connected and disconnected at the point where Bering Sea and Strait
[ 91 ]
