404 GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE IN NORTH AMERICA, 
ferent country, surrounded by a vegetation which is essentially tropical 
and generally identical with that of Cuba. The change is most strik- 
ing, because there is no difference of climate, of soil, or apparently of 
position, to account for it.” (Island Life, 1880, p. 5.) 
Let us examine this statement with some care to see if the facts war- 
rant the assertions and conclusions of the author. But first let me 
protest against Wallace’s habit of contrasting insular faunas with those 
of continuous land area, in his efforts to minimize the effects of climate. 
In most cases the great majority of forms peculiar to an island have no 
means of reaching the nearest continuous land, but in the present 
instance, as will be shown later, the proximity of Cuba and the Bahamas 
to Florida, favored by the direction of the Gulf Stream and the preva- 
lence of hurricanes blowing from the Antilles to the peninsula, have 
enabled a multitude of West Indian plants, insects, birds, and even 
land shells to reach southern Florida, though the breadth of the strait 
is an effective bar to the passage of terrestrial mammals and reptiles. 
Wallace boldly tells us, without attempt at qualification, that “be- 
tween frigid Canada and sub-tropical Florida there are less marked dif- 
ferences in the animal productions than between Florida and Cuba.” 
Frigid Canada, in eastern North America, is the home of the Eskimo, 
polar bear, musk oxen, reindeer, lemmings, marmots, beavers, musk-rats, 
porcupines, wolverines, sables, shrews, star-nosed moles, and several 
other mammals, comprising in all twenty genera, not one of which 
occurs in southern Florida.* Florida, on the other hand, is inhabited by 
opossums, harvest-mice, rice-field mice, cotton rats, wood rats, pocket 
gophers, gray foxes, spotted skunks, big-eared bats, and other forms, 
representing thirteen genera and five families of mammals that do not 
occur in frigid Canada.t In the case of birds, eastern Canada has 
twenty-six genera that do not reach Florida, among which may be men- 
tioned ptarmigans, grouse, rough-legged hawks, golden eagles, great 
gray owls, snowy owls, Acadian owls, hawk owls, three-toed woodpeck- 
ers, Canada jays, pine bullfinches, cross-bills, linnets, snow buntings, 
titlarks, winter wrens, kinglets, and stone chats,{ while Florida has at 
* The following twenty genera of mammals inhabit eastern Canada, but none of 
them reach southern Florida: Rangifer, Alce, Ovibos, Tamias, Spermophilus, Arctomys, 
Castor, Fiber, Arvicola, Evotomys, Phenacomys, Myodes, Cuniculus, Zapus, Erethizon, 
Thalarctos, Gulo, Mustela, Condylura, Scapanus, Sorex. 
+The following thirteen genera of mammals inhabit Florida, but none of them 
reach ‘frigid Canada:” Didelphis, Reithrodontomys, Oryzomys, Sigmodon, Neotoma, 
Geomys, Urocyon, Procyon, Spilogale, Corynorhinus, Nycticejus, Nyctinomus, Otopterus. 
The five families are: Didelphide, Geomyide, Procyonide, Emballonuride, Phyllosto- 
matide. 
{The following twenty-six genera of birds breed in eastern Canada, but none of 
them in Florida: Dendragapus, Bonasa, Lagopus, Archibuteo, Aquila, Scotiaptex, Nyc- 
tala, Nyctea, Surnia, Picoides, Sphyrapicus, Perisorcus, Dolichonyx, Pinicola, Loxia, 
Acanthis, Plectrophenax, Calcarius, Zonotrichia, Junco, Passerella, Anthus, Anorthura, 
Certhia, Regulus, Saxicola. 
