356 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



found at any one point. Thus, about 200 species of coleoptera, and a 

 somewhat smaller number of the other orders combined, -were found at 

 a single locality in three months, a period which would have yielded 

 three or four times this number in the Atlantic portion of the United 

 States. On removing to a second locality, two or three hundred miles 

 distant, the same fact will be repeated, with a different set of species, 

 among which the commonest kinds of the former locality may not be 

 found the species common to two adjoining localities not exceeding 

 eight per cent. This is the more remarkable, since, on the Atlantic 

 side of the continent, common species are found from New England to 

 the Gulf of Mexico. These facts are the more curious, as they cannot 

 be referred to climate, or other physical causes. The author cites 

 various examples to sustain his views, several of the results of which 

 are as follows : A comparison of the animals of California with those 

 of the other portions of the continent disproves the idea that similar 

 physical conditions will be accompanied by similar animals. California, 

 although a peculiar zoological district, belongs to the general region of 

 the continent, and is subdivided into a number of well defined sub-dis- 

 tricts. The local distribution of a few species extends to the islands of 

 the eastern Pacific, so that this must be regarded as the characteristic 

 of that region as the wide range of many species is the peculiarity 

 of the Atlantic side of the continent. 



ON THE ORIGIN AND EXISTENCE OP MAN AND THE CONTEMPORANEOUS 



ANIMALS. 



BY the creation of 'a species, I simply mean the beginning of a new 

 scries of organic phenomena, such as Ave usually understand by the 

 term " species." Whether such commencements be brought about by 

 the direct intervention of the First Cause, or by some unknown second 

 cause, or law appointed by the Author of nature, is a point upon which 

 I will not venture to offer a conjecture. That some of these species or 

 series of vital phenomena occasionally come to an abrupt termination 

 in our own times, as they have done in every preceding geological 

 epoch, is no longer disputed : and the arguments of those who imagine 

 that new creations entirely ceased from the moment that man was in- 

 troduced into the globe, (the destroying agencies continuing in full 

 activity while the renovating power was suspended,) appear to me un- 

 certain and premature. It would be presumptuous to assume that the 

 presence of the human race upon the land could affect, still less utterly 

 change, those laws which have governed the organic world in the ocean 

 for millions of years ; and if we enlarge our ideas respecting the an- 

 tiquity of man, and concede those ten thousand or even twenty thou- 

 sand years, which some ethnologists demand in order to account for 

 the early civilization of nations and the origin of their languages, we 

 must hesitate before we affirm that such a period has been one of stag- 

 nation, or diminished fluctuation in the animate world. 



The identity of the fauna and flora of England and the continent of 

 Europe, requires us to assign a very distant date to the period when 

 the existing species of animals and plants began to spread themselves 



