A FORGOTTEN NATURALIST 



211 



the late Pliocene or Pleistocene which en- 

 abled animals adapted to temperate climate 

 to cross the isthmus and penetrate into 

 South America, and to their subsequent iso- 

 lation in the mountain zones, separated from 

 their northern relatives by a wide belt of 

 tropical lowlands which they cannot — or at 

 all events do not — cross. Whether this oc- 

 curred through a rise of the isthmian ridge 

 to a much higher level than at present, 

 bringing it within the zone of temperate 

 climate along its whole length, or through a 

 lowering of temperature in tropical regions 

 during the glacial stage, bringing the zone 

 of temperate climate down near to sea level 

 in the isthmian region, or to a combination 

 of both factors, may be left unsettled. Some 

 such explanation seems to be needed to ac- 

 count for the distribution of the Colombian 

 birds. What would its effect be upon the 

 mammal fauna? Naturally it would enable 

 the late Tertiary deer of temperate North 

 America to find their way along the high- 

 lands southward until they reached tem- 

 perate South America, where they would 



spread out and tlourish in a congenial and 

 extensive region. At the same time the trop- 

 ical deer of Central America and the Gulf 

 Coast would spread into tropical South 

 America. Through the subsequent isolation 

 the northward range of the southern types 

 was limited, and in North America they had 

 already been replaced by Odocoileus, work- 

 ing its way down from the north as early 

 as the beginning of the Pleistocene, and 

 reaching as far as Colombia before it was 

 cut off by the climatic isolation of temper- 

 ate South America. 



Obviously if this be the real history of 

 the dispersal, we ought to find in the late 

 Tertiary of the Western States the ances- 

 tors of the guemals and pampas deer; in 

 an older Tertiary stage we ought to find 

 brockets, while the ancestors of the Virginia 

 deer group should be discovered in the late 

 Tertiary of northwestern Canada or possi- 

 bly of Alaska. These are matters for fu- 

 ture collecting and research to solve; they 

 will provide the test for the soundness of 

 the hypothesis here outlined. 



A Forgotten Naturalist 



By F R E D E R I C A. L U C A 8 



How many of us think of Titian 

 Bamsay Peale as a prominent 

 naturalist? How many of our 

 younger men have even heard of him? The 

 writer pleads guilty to having thought of 

 him only in connection with the exhumation 

 of "Peale's Mastodon," one of the first 

 fairly complete skeletons to be rescued from 

 the ancient elephant burying ground that 

 lies back of Newburgh, whence have come 

 most of our good specimens ; and but for 

 the fact that in 1915 the Museum acquired 

 some of Peale's paintings, together with 

 the drawings and manuscript of his pro- 

 jected work on North American butterflies, 

 he would have been still further overlooked. 

 Yet Peale Avas sufficiently well known to 

 have been appointed one of the naturalists 

 of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition to the 

 South Seas (which extended over the years 

 1838-39-40 and 42), in company with James 

 D. Dana and Horatio Hale, and was at- 



tached first to the "Peacock," and after the 

 loss of this frigate, to the "Vincennes." 



Peale's scientific career began early, for 

 when only seventeen he was elected a mem- 

 ber of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, and, in company with Thomas Say 

 and George Ord, visited the Sea Islands 

 and eastern Florida, which at that time still 

 belonged to Spain. Immediately after this 

 he Avas appointed assistant naturalist to 

 Major Stephen H. Long's expedition to the 

 Rocky Mountains, which added some sixty 

 new species of birds and mammals to our 

 known fauna, besides obtaining large and 

 varied collections of plants and insects. 

 Finally, in 1870, he figured as one of the 

 founders of the Philosophical Society of 

 Washington. 



That Peale is so little known in spite of 

 his activity and the very considerable 

 amount of work accomplished by him, is 

 probably due to the fact that he published 



