308 DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. [SECT, xxvir. 



guishable by essential characters from the analogous species 

 in the northern seas. Reptiles are not exempt from the 

 general law. The saurian (N. 216) tribes of the four quar- 

 ters of the globe differ in species ; and, although warm coun- 

 tries abound in vonomous snakes, they are specifically 

 different, and decrease, both in numbers and in the viru- 

 lence of their poison, with decrease of temperature. The 

 dispersion of insects necessarily follows that of the vege- 

 tables which supply them with food; and, in general, it 

 is observed that each kind of plant is peopled by its peculiar 

 inhabitants. Each species of bird has its particular haunt, 

 notwithstanding the locomotive powers of the winged tribes. 

 The emu is confined to Australia, the condor never leaves 

 the Andes, nor the great eagle the Alps ; and, although some 

 birds are common to every country, they are few in number. 

 Quadrupeds are distributed in the same manner wherever 

 man has not interfered. Such as are indigenous in one con- 

 tinent are not the same with their congeners in another ; 

 and, with the exception of some kinds of bats, no warm- 

 blooded animal is indigenous in the Polynesian Archipelago, 

 nor in any of the islands on the borders of the central part 

 of the Pacific. 



In reviewing the infinite variety of organized beings that 

 people the surface of the globe, nothing is more remarkable 

 than the distinctions which characterize the different tribes 

 of mankind, from the ebony skin of the torrid zone to the 

 fair and ruddy complexion of Scandinavia a difference 

 which existed in the earliest recorded times, since the 

 African is represented in the Sacred Writings to have been 

 as black as he is at the present day, and the most ancient 

 Egyptian paintings confirm that truth ; yet it appears, from 

 a comparison of the principal circumstances relating to the 

 animal economy or physical character of the various tribes of 

 mankind, that the different races are identical in species. 

 Many attempts have been made to trace the various tribes 

 back to a common origin, by collating the numerous Ian- 



