But the growth of knowledge in the interval makes me conscious of an omission of considerable moment in that statement, inasmuch as it contains no reference to the bearings of palaeontology upon the theory of the distribution of life ; nor takes note of the remarkable manner in which the facts of distribution, in present and past times, accord with the doctrine of evolution, especially in regard to land animals.
That connexion between palæontology and geology on the one hand, and the present distribution of terrestrial animals, which so strikingly impressed Mr. Darwin thirty years ago as to lead him to speak of a "law of succession of types," and of the wonderful relationship on the same continent between the dead and the living, has recently received much elucidation from the researches of Gaudry, of Rütimeyer, of Leidy, and of Alphonse Milne-Edwards, taken in connexion with the earlier labours of our lamented colleague Falconer; and it has been instructively discussed in the thoughtful and ingenious work of Mr. Andrew Murray 'On the Geographical Distribution of Mammals'[1].
I propose to lay before you, as briefly as I can, the ideas to which a long consideration of the subject has given rise in my own mind.
If the doctrine of evolution is sound, one of its immediate consequences clearly is, that the present distribution of life upon the globe is the product of two factors, the one being the distribution which obtained in the immediately preceding epoch, and the other the character and the extent of the changes which have taken place in physical geography between the one epoch and the other; or, to put the matter in another way, the Fauna and Flora of any given area, in any given epoch, can consist only of such forms of life as are directly descended from those which constituted the Fauna and Flora of the same area in the immediately preceding epoch, unless the physical geography (under which I include climatal conditions) of the area has been so altered as to give rise to immigration of living forms from some other area.
The evolutionist, therefore, is bound to grapple with the following problem whenever it is clearly put before him:—Here are the Faunæ of the same area during successive epochs. Show good cause for believing either that these Faunæ have been derived from one another by gradual modification, or that the Faunæ have reached the area in question by migration from some area in which they have undergone their development.
I propose to attempt to deal with this problem, so far as it is exemplified by the distribution of the terrestrial Vertebrata, and I shall endeavour to show you that it is capable of solution in a sense entirely favourable to the doctrine of evolution.
- ↑ The paper "On the Form and Distribution of the Land-tracts during the Secondary and Tertiary periods respectively; and on the effect upon Animal Life which great changes in Geographical Configuration have probably produced," by Mr. Searles V. Wood, Jun., which was published in the 'Philosophical Magazine' in 1862, was unknown to me when this Address was written. It is well worthy of the most careful study.
