CHAPTER IX. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



" It is not wholly the external conditions of light, heat, moisture, and 

 so forth which determine the general aspect of the animals of a 



country There are other causes more powerful than climatal 



conditions which affect the dress of species." 



BATES' Naturalist on the Amazons, vol. i. p. 19. 



IT was formerly believed that all existing 

 animals were descended from those contained 

 in Noah's Ark, but the idea that the Noachian 

 Deluge (although proved to be the tradition of 

 a real event by the striking resemblance of 

 cognate legends among almost all nations) was 

 universal, has long been abandoned by even 

 the most orthodox of theological geologists, such 

 as Hitchcock and Miller. Upon this admission, 

 of course, the supposed theological necessity for 

 assuming a common centre of distribution for 

 animal life vanishes. Let us now glance at 

 some of the facts of Geographical Distribution, 

 and see whether they agree best with the theory 

 of Evolution, or with that of Special Creation. 

 First of all, on a cursory inspection of the 



