APPENDIX. 477 



the entomologist who may travel thither, will be de- 

 lighted with the unexpected burst of insect life which 

 enlivens the air and fills the waters as soon as winter 

 has passed away. 



The distribution of animals has a close connection 

 with climate ; and though this is not the place to enter 

 into a lengthened discussion on that important subject, 

 yet a few remarks may be appropriately made on the 

 difference between the climate of Europe, and especially 

 of its sea-coasts, and that of the interior of North 

 America. In the former, the winter is tempered by the 

 warm breezes which sweep over an open sea ; and, except 

 in very high latitudes, the ground is seldom covered 

 with snow for a great length of time, or vegetation com- 

 pletely arrested by frosts of long duration. Most of 

 the grass seeds (not objects of culture) that have been 

 matured in the summer fall to the ground in the autumn, 

 and, if the season be moist, have already germinated 

 before the conclusion of winter. The perfection of what 

 has been termed by way of distinction a maritime climate 

 may be observed on the west of Ireland, or, still more 

 evidently, in the islets or " holmes " of the Shetland and 

 Orkneys, which, lying between the sixtieth and sixty- 

 first parallels, are green during the whole winter, afford- 

 ing pasture to numerous flocks of sheep : but this mild 

 winter is coupled with a less genial summer. The 

 growth of the cerealia and of the most useful vegetables 

 depends chiefly on the intensity and duration of the 

 summer heats, and is comparatively little influenced by 

 the severity of the winter cold, or the lowness of the 

 mean temperature of the year. Thus, in France, 

 though the isothermal lines, or lines of equal annual 

 heat, bend to the southward as they recede from the coast, 

 the bounding lines of culture of the olive, maize, and vine, 



