212 MY LIFE 



all Asia and North America, marks out the Ethiopian region 

 as distinctly as docs the presence of giraffes and hippopotami, 

 which are now peculiar to it. 



But I show that, in mammals, about one-third of the families 

 in the Pakcarctic and the Nearctic regions respectively are 

 not found in the other ; while in birds, one-third of the families 

 found in the Pakcarctic region are not found in the Nearctic, 

 and one-fourth of those in the Nearctic are not found in the 

 Pala?arctic region. These facts prove, I maintain, a radical 

 dissimilarity, although, owing to the fact that temperate Europe 

 and Asia are continuous with tropical Africa and Asia, and 

 temperate with tropical America, neither of the regions we 

 are considering have any important families of birds altogether 

 peculiar to them. Any of my readers who are interested in 

 the problems here stated should read the two articles above 

 referred to. 



Other articles were, " A Representative House of Lords," 

 in the Contemporary Revieiv (June), and "A Suggestion to 

 Sabbath-Keepers," in the Nineteenth Century (October), both 

 which articles attracted notice in the Press. I also wrote 

 a paper criticizing the Rev. George Henslow's views as to the 

 origin of irregular flowers, and of spines and prickles, in 

 Natural Science (September), the three articles being included 

 in my " Studies." I also reviewed James Hutchinson Stirling's 

 " Darwinianism " in Nature (February 8) and Mr. Benjamin 

 Kidd's " Social Evolution" in the same paper (April 12), as 

 well as an anonymous volume, entitled " Nature's Method in 

 the Evolution of Life," by a writer who suggests vague 

 theories, less intelligible even than those of Lucretius, as a 

 substitute for the luminous work of Darwin. 



In the next year (1895) I wrote an important article on 

 " The Method of Organic Evolution " {Fortnightly Review, 

 February-March), which was chiefly devoted to showing that 

 the views of Mr Francis Galton, and of Mr. Bateson in his 

 book on " Discontinuous Variations," are erroneous ; and that 

 such variations, which are usually termed " sports," and in 

 extreme cases " monstrosities," do not indicate the method of 

 evolution. Darwin gave special attention to this view., and 



