i8o STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



and Upper Mexico, and when it was regarded as a "civet" (Viver- 

 ridce], an anomaly at once arose, since all known "civets" inhabit 

 the Old World. But when the supposed " civet " was proved to be 

 a member of the racoon group, all the difficulties of the case 

 vanished ; inasmuch as, being one of the Procyonida or racoons, 

 it fell naturally into its habitat, since all the members of this family 

 are limited in their distribution to the New World. An error in 

 classification may thus generate anomalies in distribution which 

 further research proves to have no real existence. 



These illustrations of the manner in which the difficulties of dis- 

 tribution are resolved may serve to show besides the wide demands 

 which this science makes upon well-nigh every department of natural 

 science. The issues of distribution, in fact, involve an acquaintance 

 with the entire range of not merely biological study but of geological 

 investigation as well ; whilst the deductions of distributional science, 

 more perhaps than those of any other department of biology, open up 

 before us the widest possible vista of human knowledge, and link to- 

 gether the varied interests of workers in every field of natural-science 

 study. Nor is it in the grander aspects of this science that its far-reach- 

 ing extent is alone to be seen, Even the apparently trivial details that 

 constitute the story of the life existing on a barren and desolate 

 islet may play an important part in the solution of questions dealing 

 with the nature of life in its highest grades. Thus availing itself 

 of knowledge from every source, this department of biology, more 

 forcibly perhaps, as a whole, than any other branch of life-science, 

 demonstrates how the true history of the existing universe is a 

 history of variation and change a chronicle, whereof the materials 

 for each fresh chapter are derived from the lessons and the teachings 

 of both the remote and the recent past. 



