NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. 191 



"A similar result arises when we compare the three 

 great intertropical regions, as well as the extreme spaces 

 of the three great continents, which advance into the 

 temperate climates of the southern hemisphere. 



'• Thus, the tribes of simia? (monkeys), of the dog and 

 cat kinds, of pachyderms, including elephants, tapirs, 

 rhinoceroses, hogs, of bats, of saurian and ophidian 

 reptiles, as well of birds and other terrene animals, are 

 all different in the three great continents. In the 

 lower departments of the mammiferous family, we tind 

 that the bruta, or edentata (sloths^ armadillos, etc.), of 

 Africa, are differently organised from those of America, 

 and these again from the tribes found in the Malayan 

 archipelago and Terra Australis." * 



It does not appear that the diversity between the 

 similar regions of Africa, Asia, and America, is occa- 

 sioned in all instances by any disqualification of these 

 countries to support precisely the same genera or species. 

 The ox, horse, goat, A:c., of the elder continent have 

 thriven and extended themselves in the new, and many 

 of the indigenous tribes of America would no doubt 

 flourish in corresponding climates in Europe, Asia, and 

 Africa. It has, however, been remarked by naturalists 

 unacquainted with the Macleay system, that the larger 

 and more powerful animals of their respective orders 

 belong to the elder continent, and that thus the animals 

 of America, unlike the features of inanimate nature, 

 appear to be upon a small scale. The swiftest and most 

 agile animals, and a large proportion of those most 

 useful to man, are also natives of the elder continent. 

 On the other hand, the bulk of the edentata, a group 

 remarkable for defects and meanness of organisation, 

 are American. The zoology of America may be said, 

 * " liescavclics,'' 4th edition, i. 95. 



