familiar. He would also anticipate that diversities of climate would always be associated with a corresponding diversity in the forms of life.
Now these anticipations are to a considerable extent justified. Remoteness on the earth's surface is usually an indication of diversity in the fauna and flora, while strongly contrasted climates are always accompanied by a considerable contrast in the forms of life. But this correspondence is by no means exact or proportionate, and the converse propositions are often quite untrue. Countries which are near to each other often differ radically in their animal and vegetable productions; while similarity of climate, together with moderate geographical proximity, are often accompanied by marked diversities in the prevailing forms of life. Again, while many groups of animals—genera, families, and sometimes even orders—are confined to limited regions, most of the families, many genera, and even some species are found in every part of the earth. An enumeration of a few of these anomalies will better illustrate the nature of the problem we have to solve.
As examples of extreme diversity, notwithstanding geographical proximity, we may adduce Madagascar and Africa, whose animal and vegetable productions are far less alike than are those of Great Britain and Japan at the remotest extremities of the great northern continent; while an equal, or perhaps even a still greater, diversity exists between Australia and New Zealand. On the other hand, Northern Africa and South Europe, though separated by the Mediterranean Sea, have faunas and floras which do not differ from each other more than do the various countries of Europe. As a proof that similarity of climate and general adaptability have had but a small part in determining the forms of life in each country, we have the fact of the enormous increase of rabbits and pigs in Australia and New Zealand, of horses and cattle in South America, and of the common sparrow in North America, though in none of these cases are the animals natives of the countries in which they thrive so well. And lastly, in illustration of the fact that allied forms are not always found in adjacent regions, we have the tapirs, which are found only on opposite sides of the globe, in tropical America and the Malayan Islands; the camels of
