1520 THE STORY OF THE UNIVERSE 



In the last place we find those of the mammalia 

 which have no posterior extremities, whose pis- 

 catory form and aquatic mode of life would induce 

 us to form them into a particular class, were it not 

 that in everything else their economy is similar to 

 that in which we have them. These are the hot- 

 blooded fishes of the ancients, or the Cetacea, which, 

 uniting to the vigor of the other mammalia the ad- 

 vantage of being sustained by the watery element, 

 present to our wondering sight the most gigantic 

 of animals. 



ZOOLOGICAL ZONES 



SIR RICHARD OWEN 



ORGANIC life in its animal form is much more 

 developed, and more variously, in the sea than 

 in its vegetable form. 



Observations of marine animals have led to at- 

 tempts at generalizing the results; and the modes 

 of enunciating these generalizations or laws of 

 geographical distribution are very analogous to those 

 which have been applied to the vegetable kingdom, 

 which is as diversely developed on land as is the ani- 

 mal kingdom in the sea. Certain horizontal areas, 

 or provinces, have been characterized by the entire 

 assemblage of animals and plants constituting their 

 population, of which a considerable proportion is 

 peculiar to each province, and the majority of the 

 species have their areas of maximum development 

 within it. 



Of such provinces of marine life, that much-la- 



