382 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 



while others have only two ; and also in having either two or 

 four legs. Hence we might be tempted to refer them to differ- 

 ent types, did we not know intermediate animals, completing 

 the series, namely, the Proteus and Meyalobatrachus. Now 

 the former exists only in the subterranean lakes of Austria, 

 and the latter in Japan. The connection in this case is con- 

 sequently established by means of species which inhabit dis- 

 tant continents. 



627. Neither the distribution of animals therefore, any 

 more than their organization, can be the effect of external in- 

 fluences. We must, on the contrary, see in it the realization 

 of a plan wisely designed, the work of a Supreme Intelligence, 

 who created, at the beginning, each species of animal at the 

 place, and for the place, which it inhabits. To each species 

 has been assigned a limit which it has no disposition to over- 

 pass so long as it remains in a wild state. Only those animals 

 which have been subjected to the yoke of man, or whose 

 subsistence is dependent on man's social habits, are exceptions 

 to this rule. 



628. As the human race has extended over the surface of 

 the earth, man has more or less modified the animal popula- 

 tion of different regions, either by exterminating certain spe- 

 cies, or by introducing others with which he desires to be 

 more intimately associated, the domestic animals. Thus, 

 the dog is found wherever we know of the presence of man. 

 The horse, originally from Asia, was introduced into America 

 by the Spaniards ; where it has thriven so well, that it is 

 found wild, in innumerable herds, over the Pampas of South 

 America, and the prairies of the West. In like manner the 

 domestic ox became wild in South America. Many less wel- 

 come animals have followed man in his peregrinations ; as, 

 for example, the rat and the mouse, as well as a multitude of 

 insects, such as the house-fly, the cock-roach, and others 

 which are attached to certain species of plants, as the white- 

 butterfly, the Hessian-fly, &c. The honey-bee also has been 

 imported from Europe. 



629. Among the species which have disappeared, under 

 the influence of man, we may mention the Dodo, a peculiar 

 species of bird which once inhabited the Mauritius, some re- 

 mains of which are preserved in the British and Ashmolean 

 Museums ; a large cetacean of the north (Rytina Stelleri), 

 formerly inhabiting the coasts of Behring's Straits, and which 



