169 



GEOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS. 



Consent ientia Omnia. 



The subject of the Geography of Animals, although 

 one of considerable interest, and capable of affording 

 the greatest satisfaction to the lover of Nature, seems, 

 as yet, to have received only a partial elucidation in 

 zoological w^orks, among topics of a hke nature ; and, 

 in fact, a book expressly devoted to this subject may 

 be regarded as a desideratum in a library of Natural 

 History. Upon this plea, I may be excused for of- 

 fering the following imperfect review of the laws which 

 appear to regulate the general distribution of animals 

 on the surface of our globe. The first of these laws, 

 which it seems proper to introduce, is — that all ani- 

 mals have been placed in situations adapted to their 

 several and respective wants and economies, or, in 

 other words, that the animals, and the climate, with 

 its other productions, are perfectly correspondent — 

 the one to the purposes of the other. This law, how- 

 ever, continues valid only on the consideration of the 

 migrations, which take place in correspondence with 

 the alternations of the seasons, and the entire re- 

 moval or alteration in the products of the climate and 

 the soil. 



In connexion with the present statement, we are 

 naturally induced to contemplate a most interesting 

 fact ; which no law that has hitherto been advanced 

 in Zoology can satisfactorily account for ; that many 

 portions of the earth are inhabited by a race of ani- 

 mals perfectly distinct in form and character from 

 that of any other region, a circumstance which, if 

 any useful result would be attained, might induce us 

 to refer to the Mosiac record of the creation, and to 

 various theories on that subject invented by such as 

 discredit the biblical account, or consider it to be 

 partial in its nature. In this state of things each 

 person must judge for himself; and it will suffice in 

 this paper that we maintain the inapplicability of 

 surrounding physical conditions to interpret so ex- 

 voL. IV. — 1834. X 



