Sept. 15, 1887] 



NATURE 



465 



need further investigation in regard to them, we want much more 

 correlation of results than we yet possess, and still more a com- 

 jiarison of the results obtained by botanical and zoological 

 inquirers. Here there is a wide field, and a field worthy of 

 cultivation. I do not know that a more competent body of 

 cultivators can be found than within this Section of the British 

 Association, and if they can be persuaded to make common cause, 

 the study of biology will be much advanced. We have been told 

 that it is as useless to investigate the origin of life as the origin of 

 matter. That may be true or it may not ; but it seems to me that to 

 learn the way in which life has spread over the globe ought to 

 be within the capacity of man, and we can hardly learn that 

 way except by far more intercommunication of special know- 

 ledge than has hitherto been made. It is evident that with the 

 existing minute subdivision of biological research the subject is 

 beyond the power of any one man ; but I should rejoice if any- 

 thing I could say on this occasion might put in train some 

 alliance between botanists and zoologists for the object I have 

 just suggested. It may be said that we have not sufficient 

 information as to certain parts of the world to enable such an 

 alliance to effect its work satisfactorily. If that be the case I 

 am sure you will join with me in thinking that these insufficiently 

 known parts of the world should be subjected to a thorough 

 biological exploration. For many years past I have been 

 accustomed to hear an adage that "Property has its duties as 

 well as its rights." If I am strongly in favour of the rights of 

 property, I am no less prepared to exact from it its duties. 

 Various events have given to this nation rights of property in 

 many parts of the globe. I think we ought to justify those 

 rights, and there is no better way of doing this than by 

 performing the corresponding duties. It is incontestable 

 that among the dependencies of the British Crown there 

 are innumerable places — islands, large and small, territories the 

 limits of which no geographer or diplomatist can define, and so 

 forth — of which the fauna and flora have never been scientifically 

 investigated. It is right, of course, that I should recognize the 

 successful effisrts made in many instances by the directorate of 

 the Royal Gardens at Kew, and to a less exteot by private 

 persons. But why should not a properly organized biological 

 investigation of all the portions of the Empire be made ? You 

 will, I think, all agree that it is our duty to carry out investiga- 

 tions of this kind. Whether they would be belter performed 

 vmder the superintendence of Her Majesty's Government or not 

 is a point on which I reserve my opinion, only mentioning that 

 the success which has attended those instituted by the botanical 

 authorities at Kew leads me to suppose that an extension of the 

 method there followed might produce results as satisfactory ; 

 but, if this be the course adopted, I must point out that the 

 organization of a corresponding zoological and geological direc- 

 torate will be needed. This matter I merely throw out for your 

 consideration ; but I would add that if anything is to be done 

 no time is to be lost. 



When on a former occasion (at Glasgow in 1876) I had the 

 honour of addressing a Department of this Section, I pointed out 

 the enormous changes that were swiftly and inevitably coming 

 upon the fauna of many of our colonies. The fears I then 

 expressed have been fully realized. I am told by Sir Walter Buller 

 that in New Zealand one may now live for weeks and months 

 without seeing a single example of its indigenous birds, all of 

 which, in the more settled districts, have been supplanted by the 

 aliens that have been imported ; while further inland these last 

 are daily extending their range at the cost of the endemic forms. 

 A letter I have lately received from Sir James Hector wholly 

 confirms this statement, and I would ask you to bear in mind 

 that these indigenous species are, with scarcely an exception, 

 peculiar to that country, and, from every scientific point of view, 

 of the most instructive character. They supply a link with the 

 past that once lost can never be recovered. It is therefore in- 

 cumbent upon us to know all we can about them before they 

 vanish. I have particularly instanced birds because I happen to 

 have studied them most ; but pray do not imagine that the same 

 process of extirpation is not extending to all other classes of 

 animals, or that I take less interest in their fate. The forms 

 that we are allowing to be killed off, being almost without 

 exception ancient forms, are just those that will teach us more of 

 the way in which life has spread over the globe than any other 

 recent forms, and for the sake of posterity, as well as to escape 

 its reproach, we ought to learn all we can about them before they 

 go hence and are no more seen. 

 I have just now applied to these expiring forms of New 



Zealand the epithet ancient, and in connexion therewith I would, 

 by way of conclusion, offer a few remarks on the aspect which 

 the subject of Geographical Distribution presents to me. Some 

 of us zoologists — I am conscious of having myself been guilty of 

 what I am about to condemn — have been apt to speak of Zoo- 

 logical Regions as if they were, and always had been, fixed areas. 

 I am persuaded that if we do this we fall into an error as grievous 

 as that of our predecessors, who venerated the fixity of species. 

 One of the best tests of a biologist is his being able to talk or 

 write of ' Species ' without believing that the term is more than a 

 convenient counter for the exchange of ideas. In the same way 

 I hold that a good biologist .should talk or write of "Zoological 

 Regions." The expression no doubt arose out of the belief, 

 now scouted by all, in Centres of Creation ; and, as sometimes 

 used, the vice of its birth still clings to it. To my mind the 

 true meaning of the phrase ' ' Zoological Region " is that of an 

 area inhabited by a fauna which is, so to speak, a "function " 

 of the period of its development and prevalence over a great 

 part of the habitable globe, but at any rate of the period of its 

 reaching the portion of the earth's surface where we now find it. 

 One great thing to guard against is the presumption that the 

 fauna originated within its present area and has been always 

 contained therein. Thus I take it that the fauna which 

 characterizes the New-Zealand Region — for I follow Prof. 

 Huxley in holding that a region it is fully entitled to be called — 

 is the comparatively little changed relic and representative of 

 an early fauna of much wider range ; that the characteristic 

 fauna of the! Australian Region exhibits in the same way 

 that of a later period ; and that of the Neotropical Region 

 of one later still. But while the first two regions have 

 each been so long isolated that a large proportion of their 

 fauna remains essentially unaltered, the last has never been so 

 completely severed, and has received, doubtless from the north, 

 an infusion of more recent and therefore stronger forms ; while, 

 perhaps impelled by the rivalry of these stronger forms, the 

 weaker have blossomed, as it were, into the richness and 

 variety which so eminently characterize the animal products of 

 Central and South America. I make no attempt to connect 

 these changes with geological events, but they will doubtless one 

 day be explained geologically. It is not difficult to conceive 

 that North America was once inhabited by the ancestors of a 

 large proportion of the present Neotropical fauna, and that the 

 latter was wholly, or almost wholly, thrust forth — perhaps by 

 glacial action, perhaps by the incursion of stronger forms from 

 Asia. The small admixture of Neotropical forms that now 

 occur in North America may have been survivors of this period 

 of stress, or they may be the descendants of the more ancient forms 

 resuming their lost inheritance. Beyond the fact that these few 

 Neotropical forms continue to exist in North America, its fauna 

 seems to be in a broad sense inseparable from that of the Palaearctic 

 area, and, in my belief, is not to be separated from it. The most 

 difficult problems are those connected with the Ethiopian and 

 Indian (which Mr. Wallace calls the Oriental) areas ; but I sup- 

 pose we must regard them as offshoots from a somewhat earlier 

 condition of the great northern or "Holarctic" fauna, and as such 

 to represent a state of things that once existed in Europe and the 

 greater part of Asia. To pursue this subject — one of most pleas- 

 ing speculation— would now be impossible. I pray you to pardon 

 my prolixity, and I have done. 



SECTION E. 



geography. 



Opening Address by Colonel Sir Charles Warren, 

 R.E., G.C.M.G., F.R.S., F.R.G.S., President of the 

 Section. 



"The geographer should therefore chiefly devote himself to what is 

 practically important." — Strabo, c. i. § 19. 



My predecessors in former years have used their discretion in 

 the opening address either to generalize on the science of 

 geography or to lay stress upon those particular subjects to 

 which they considered it desirable to call attention. I propose 

 on this occasion to refer to matters which have long been of im- 

 portance to those who are desirous of the spread of the know- 

 ledge of geography, and in which I trust the public generally are 

 acquiring an interest. I refer to the teaching of geography 

 in our schools and the economy and advantage to the State 



