12 SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF 



with anything like the facility with which the plants and insects of 

 the Old World are every day being naturalized in America, there 

 must be some cause or other for this singular state of things. What 

 is that cause? It is, as we believe, a simple fact which is pretty gen- 

 erally recognized now as true by modern naturalists, namely, that 

 the plants and animals of America belong, as a general rule, to an 

 old-fashioned creation, not so highly improved and developed as the 

 more modernized creation which exists in Europe. ]n other words, 

 although this is popularly known as the New World, it is in reality a 

 much older world than that which we are accustomed to call the Old 

 World. Consequently^ our plants and animals can no more stand 

 their ground against European competitors imported from abroad, 

 than the Red Indian has been able to stand his ground against the 

 White Caucasian Race. On the other hand, if by chance an Ameri- 

 can plant or an American animal finds its way into Europe, it can, as 

 a general rule, no more stand its ground there against its European 

 competitors, than a colony of Red Indians could stand their ground 

 in Engl ind, even if you gave them a whole county of land and an 

 ample supply of stock, tools, and provisions to begin with. For 

 throughout Animated Nature, as has been conclusively shown by 

 Charles Darwin, there is a continual struggle for existence, the 

 stronger and more favorably organized species overpowering and 

 starving out from time to time their less vigorous and less favorably 

 organized competitors. Hence, it is as hopeless a task for a poor 

 puny, old-fashioned American bug to contend against a strong 

 energetic, highly-developed, European bug, as it would be for a fleet 

 of old-fashioned wooden ships to fight against a fleet of our modern 

 iron-clads. 



Let not "Young America," however, be altogether discouraged 

 and disgusted at hearing, that our Animal and Vegetable Creation is 

 more old-fashioned than that of what is commonly known as the Old 

 World. The oldest geological formations, in which the remains of 

 Mammals occur, contain the remains of such mammals exclusively 

 (Marsupialea) as bring forth their young only partially developed, 

 and carry those young about with them in a pouch, till the day of 

 complete development and physical "second birth" arrives. In Amer- 

 ica we have a single genus — the Opossums — that belongs to this ante- 

 diluvian type. In the three ancient continents they have absolutely 

 none at all. But if in this respect America is more old-fashioned than 

 Europe, Australia is still more old-fashioned than America; for there 

 almost all their mammals possess this remarkable peculiarity ; so 

 that if the American creation is somewhat old-fogyish, that ot Aus- 

 tralia is the very concentrated essence of old-fogyism itself. Conse- 

 quently, if Europe crows over us as altogether "behind the times," 

 "Young America" can take its revenge by crowing over Australia, as 

 the land of the Kangaroo and the Wombat and other such exploded 

 absurdities of the Mesozoic epoch. 



