NA TURE 



!89 



THE DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 

 A Text-Book of Zoogeography. By F. E. Beddard, 

 M.A., F.R.S. Cambridge Natural Science Manuals. 

 Pp. viii. and 246. (Cambridge : University Press, 1895.) 



WITHIN the small limits of 246 duodecimo pages of 

 fairly large type, it is scarcely possible to do justice 

 to such an e.xtensivje subject as the geographical dis- 

 tribution of animals ; and, baaring in mind the difficulties 

 thus imposed upon him, we think the author of the volume 

 before us is. on the whole, to be congratulated on the 

 manner in which he has completed a very difficult task- 

 He has given the student a large am.ount of very valuable 

 information, and this m a pleasantly-written and easily- 

 understood form. A writer who was not thoroughly at 

 home in his subject might have contented himself with 

 merely giving us abstracts of Mr. Wallace's works, with 

 such corrections as are necessary in order to bring them 

 up to date. Not so Mr. Beddard, who has introduced 

 into his te.\t-book a very large number of facts, chiefly re- 

 lating to the lower vertebrates and invertebrates, which 

 are not to be found in more pretentious works, and his 

 volume will thus be of value to all students. As being 

 one of the author's specialities, attention is strongly 

 directed to the distribution of earth-worm; ; and the re- 

 marks concerning the curious relationship between the 

 worms of Patagonia and those of Australia and New 

 Zealand will be found spscially interesting. 



The general plan of the work is as follows. After de- 

 fining locality and station, and pointing out the vari- 

 ability in the distributional areas of animals, the author 

 takes a numbsr of selected instances, drawn from very 

 varied classes, of the distribution of particular groups. 

 We have, for example, the range contrasted of such dif- 

 ferent animals as rheas, ibs.ves, gallinaceous birds, eden- 

 tates, tortoises, batrachians, scorpions, planarians, and 

 earth-worms. Having contrasted the differences pre- 

 sented b\' these groups, Mr. Beddard comes to the con- 

 sideration of zoological regions ; and here he concludes 

 on the whole to adopt those of Messrs. .Sclater and 

 Wallace. " As a mere matter of convenience," he re- 

 marks, "it is immaterial whether we join Europe, Asia, 

 and North America into one Holarctic region, or use the 

 current terms of Nearctic and Patearctic for the Old and 

 New World divisions of this extensive tract." With all 

 due deference, we submit that convenience has nothing 

 whatever to do with the matter ; and it is to be regretted 

 that the author has not been bolder, and made a clean 

 sweep of what is obsolete in our present system of zoo- 

 logical geography. He admits that mammals arc, on the 

 whole, the most satisfactory group on which to lay the 

 foundations of the scheme ; and yet he deliberately 

 throws away Mr. Blanford's very excellent classification, 

 in order to adopt one which obviously does not accord 

 with the facts. 



A want of boldness is, indeed, in our opinion, one of 

 the most serious defects in the work, and we should have 

 much liked to hear the author express, without rcserva- 

 tinn, his re.il opinions both as regards the so-called 

 .Antarctica, and also in respec: to Dr. Baur's view that 

 NO. 1343, VOL. 52] 



the Galapagos Islands are part of a sunken continent. 

 We gather that, on the whole, Mr. Beddard appears to 

 be indisposed to admit Antarctica in its entirety, but as 

 to how much he believes in a southern land connection 

 of more limited extent, it is almost impossible to discover. 

 In this section of the work, moreover, the author has 

 made two glaringly contradictory statements. Thus 

 whereas on page 116, in treating of the limits of 

 the Australian region, he remarks that "the boundary 

 between it and the Oriental is sharply marked," we find 

 him on page io3 hesitating whether Celebes should not 

 be transferred from the former to the latter region. So 

 much for sharp boundaries. 



The third chapter deals with the causes influencing 

 distribution ; and here it may be noted that the author 

 differs from Dr. C. H. Merriam,' in that he attributes a 

 \ery minor part to the influence of temperature. Not 

 improbably, however, the difference of opinion is largely 

 due to the different environment of the two workers, the 

 effiscts of this factor being apparently more noticeable in 

 the New World than in the Old. ^'ery many interesting 

 instances bearing on the problem of dispersal will be 

 found in this chapter. In the fourth chapter, the faunas 

 of islands are discussed ; while the fifth closes the work 

 with a few theoretical considerations. In this chapter 

 we find the remarkable suggestion that Marsupials have 

 taken their origin in .Australia ; a conclusion which, in our 

 opinion, has no shadow of justification from the facts of 

 their past history, and which is absolutely contra- 

 dicted by the author himself. After stating on page 

 226, that their "number in Europe may have been 

 small," he speaks of these animals on page 227 as "once 

 existing in great variety in Europe and North America," 

 and later on in the same page that the "survivors have 

 been pushed in to the furthest corner of the world — the 

 .Australian continent, and some of the islands to the 

 north." More hopelessly contradictor)' statements it 

 would be difficult to find. As to the author's conclusions 

 that there has been a general migration of the older 

 forms from north to south, we are in full accord. 



It is much to be regretted, especially from the point of 

 view of elementary students, that the work should be dis- 

 figured by several glaring inaccuracies which ought to have 

 been corrected in proof. We find, for instance, the genus 

 Anurosorex given as exclusively Pahearctic, whereas one 

 of the two known species is from -Assam. On the same 

 page, again, the genus Capra is likewise given as confined 

 to the Patearctic region, whereas, on p. 22, the South 

 Indian C. hyloeriiis is included in the same genus. 

 Should Mr. O. Thomas ever read the work, he will be 

 surprised to learn (p. 90) that he has identified the 

 .African pouched rats of the genus Criceloinys with the 

 .American Hesperomys. On p. 97 we have " musk-deer " 

 in place of "musk-ox" ; while on p. 100 we find the 

 Siberian hippopotamus figuring as Chwropotamus (the 

 name of an Eocene genus of pigs) instead of C/iwrop^is. 

 Again, on p. 103, we have the langurs alluded to under 

 the name of Presby/es, while on p. io3 they appear 

 as Semnopithcctis. By what confusion of ideas the 

 name Hyracodon (which belongs to an extinct genus of 

 rhinoceros-like animals) is made to do duty for Didelpliys, 

 we arc at a loss to understand. Carelessness is likewise 



1 See Xat. Cc*s^. ^fii '•■ \"I v!. pp. 229-238 (1894). 



o 



