The Importance of Isolation.
Isolation is no doubt an important aid to natural selection, as shown by the fact that islands so often present a number of peculiar species; and the same thing is seen on the two sides of a great mountain range or on opposite coasts of a continent. The importance of isolation is twofold. In the first place, it leads to a body of individuals of each species being limited in their range and thus subjected to uniform conditions for long spaces of time. Both the direct action of the environment and the natural selection of such varieties only as are suited to the conditions, will, therefore, be able to produce their full effect. In the second place, the process of change will not be interfered with by intercrossing with other individuals which are becoming adapted to somewhat different conditions in an adjacent area. But this question of the swamping effects of intercrossing will be considered in another chapter.
Mr. Darwin was of opinion that, on the whole, the largeness of the area occupied by a species was of more importance than isolation, as a factor in the production of new species, and in this I quite agree with him. It must, too, be remembered, that isolation will often be produced in a continuous area whenever a species becomes modified in accordance with varied conditions or diverging habits. For example, a wide-ranging species may in the northern and colder part of its area become modified in one direction, and in the southern part in another direction; and though for a long time an intermediate form may continue to exist in the intervening area, this will be likely soon to die out, both because its numbers will be small, and it will be more or less pressed upon in varying seasons by the modified varieties, each better able to endure extremes of climate. So, when one portion of a terrestrial species takes to a more arboreal or to a more aquatic mode of life, the change of habit itself leads to the isolation of each portion. Again, as will be more fully explained in a future chapter, any difference of habits or of haunts usually leads to some modification of colour or marking, as a means of concealment from enemies; and there is reason to believe that this difference will be intensified by natural selection as a means of identification
