DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 589 



upon one of his voyages through Barrow's Strait, met with a bear swimming in the water 

 about midway between the shores, which were forty miles apart, and where no ice was in 

 sight. These facts sufficiently account for the extensive occupancy of the arctic region 

 by the polar bear, and for his appearance on islands separated from the continents by a 

 broad oceanic expanse. As an instance of adaptation to external circumstances, the 

 capital clothing of the animals of this zone may be mentioned, which supplies us with the 

 choicest furs ; as well as their prevailing white colour, of which we have examples in the 

 bear, the fox, and the white hare of Greenland, the colour which reflects most heat and 

 light. 



2. North Temperate Region. This district comprises two departments, separated from 

 each other by a wide extent of ocean, impassable to the land animals by ordinary means, 

 the one extending through Europe and Asia, and the other through North America, 

 between which the billows of the Atlantic and Pacific roll. Here we have two distinct 

 zoological provinces. The common bear, which occurs in Europe and in the north of 

 Asia, does not exist in America; nor the stag, which inhabits the European part of the Old 

 Continent to the 64th parallel, and the Asian to the ooth. On the other hand, the 

 corresponding tract in America is the abode of races peculiar to itself, among which we 

 may enumerate the wapiti, the grizzly bear, and the bison. This latter animal once 

 occupied nearly the whole of the temperate regions of the New World, but has retreated 

 within narrower limits before the advancing influence of civilisation. It inhabited the 

 Carolinas at the period of the earliest colonisation, and formerly extended over all the 

 United States favourable to its existence, but it has not been seen in Kentucky since the 

 year 1766, and now haunts chiefly the great prairies bordering on the Missouri, 

 occasionally extending southward to the 35th, and northward to the 62nd parallels. 

 The bisons associate in vast herds, and, being herbivorous, are compelled to wander far, 

 in order to find the requisite supply of vegetable food. The surface of the prairies is some 

 times blackened by their numbers. " It is no exaggeration," says Mr. James, " to assert, 

 that in one place, on the banks of the Platte, at least ten thousand burst on our sight in 

 an instant. In the morning we again sought the living picture ; but upon all the plain, 

 which last evening was so teeming with polar animals, not one remained." Till a recent 

 date, the Rocky Mountains formed an impassable barrier to their westward progress; but 

 of late years they are said to have discovered a passage across the range, near the 

 sources of the Saskatchawaw, and now roam upon the banks of the Columbia. The same 

 causes which have affected the range of these quadrupeds in North America, have operated 

 to produce a similar effect, in various parts of the globe, in the case of other animals. 

 The republican establishments of the beaver have vanished from the banks of the Rhone 

 and the Danube ; the bear, wild boar, and wolf have disappeared from our own country ; 

 and the lion, which, in former times, must have shook the hoar-frost from his mane, as a 

 dweller in Thrace and Macedonia, has retired entirely from Europe. 



3. Region of Intertropical and South America. In this extensive tract, capable of 

 subdivision into several distinct zoological provinces, \vehave, besides the jaguar, formerly 

 mentioned, the puma, or lion of the New World, but a very feeble representative of its 

 eastern namesake ; the llama, improperly styled the camel of the western continent, 

 inhabiting Peru and Chili ; the tapir of Brazil ; and the didelphis, or American opossum, 

 one of the marsupial family, which comprise those animals which produce their young in 

 an immature state, and keep them for a time attached to their bodies, chiefly in abdominal 

 bags or pouches, of which several genera occur in Australia. The conformation of 

 the American opossum differs from that of the Australian in several respects, but chiefly 

 in having a long prehensile or muscular tail, constituting a fifth limb, a furniture designed 

 to accommodate the animal to the vast and lofty forests of Guiana, which are its abode. 



