94 MAMMALS. 



separate and distiuct from the common African Lion ;* but the supposed blacker mane of the 

 Gambian variety is not a specific character, but merel)^ due to age or individual peculiarity, and the 

 absence of a mane in the Guzerat variety is not constant, nor is that peculiarity confined to the 

 individuals from that quarter. 



This is another illustration of Agassiz's view, that the more highly organised a family or genus 

 is, the shorter are the steps between the different forms which compose it. But while the facts 

 support him in this observation, I think they give an intelligible qualification or restriction to another 

 of his too sweeping propositions, — viz. that most animals and plants must have originated primi- 

 tively over the whole extent of their natural distribution ; that, for instance. Lions, which occur 

 over almost the whole of Africa, over extensive jjarts of Southern Asia, and were formerly found 

 oven over Asia Minor and Greece, must have originated primitively over the whole range of these 

 limits of their distribution, f 



Now, while I agree with hiui that species have been developed simultaneously over a considerable 

 extent of country, I do not think that the present extent of their distribution is an absolute 

 gauge of that of their original starting-point. 



Agassiz assumes that the species has always kept within its original bounds. I hold, on the 

 contrary, that it may sj)read from its original field, and yet retain its general specific character, 

 pro^dded the conditions of the new field are materially different from those of the old ; but that 

 whenever it does so spread, such extension of its limits is marked by some degree of alteration 

 in its minor characters ; for the qualities of condition of life are so subtle that the constitution 

 of few animals are sufficiently blimt to allow them to pass into a new territory without being sensible 

 of them, and having the impulse to change of species brought more or less into action through 

 them. Wherever, therefore, we see varieties of a species, I think we maj' at once lay it down as 

 probable that here the species has wandered beyond the limits of its original specific centre. 



Now, we have already seen that there are geological groimds for holding that the original 

 specific centre of the carnivora was the northern hemisphere, neither the Cave Lion nor what was 

 doubtless its descendant, the modern Lion, having aj^peared until the retreat of the glacial epoch 

 had commenced,^ and Africa and India having been until then disunited from Europe and Asia. 



By the time our Lion appeared, Europe was dismiited from America, and united to Africa and 

 Asia, and the way was free to pass from the former into the latter. I have already explained my 

 grounds for thinking that at the height of the glacial epoch almost the whole of Europe was covered 

 either by ice or water, and organic life destroyed from ofi" its face, with the exception of a few 

 miocene species which may have still survived in its extreme south, where not submerged and beyond 

 the influence of the cold. ^Yhen the ice retreated, and the land began to be raised, Europe must 

 have been re-peoplcd from Asia, in which the previous flora and fauna had found refuge, doubtless 

 in the nearest habitable part, which might perhaps be Persia. Thus much premised, I imagine 



* Jlr. Blyth says that the Guzerat lion is fully mancd, of Asiatic Society, 1863, p. 63. The mane is certainly 



and not a nearly maneless vanity, as .stated by Captain sometimes absent in the Guzerat variety. I have seen the 



Smee, whose figure represents an immature animal. Mane- skin of a full-grown male maneless specimen brought by a 



less individuals, however, whether or not constituting a friend from that country, 

 particular race, occur also in Mesopotamia, and even in f Agassiz, op. cit. p. 10. 



Africa. Vide "Earth's Travels," 1. 482, v. 971, 270. J I do not adopt the common phrase, the cfose of the 



Wlierever found the species appears to be subject to much glacial epoch, altliough I may sometimes, from habitude, 



individual variation of colouring of mane and general be betrayed into using it : for I do not think wc have 



aspect. See Blyth's " Catalogue of Mammalia," in Museum reached the close of it yet. 



