Notices of New Books. 7583 



Zealand ; we see it also in the birds of the caves of Brazil. Mr. 

 Woodward has shown that the same law holds good with sea-shells, 

 but from the wide distribution of most genera of raollusks it is not 

 well displayed by them. Other cases should be added, as the rela- 

 tions between the living and extinct land shells of Madeira, and 

 between the extinct and living shells of the Aralo-Caspian Sea. Now, 

 what does this remarkable law of the succession of the same types 

 within the same areas mean .? He would be a bold man who, after com- 

 paring the present climate of Australia and of parts of South America 

 under the same latitude, would attempt to account on the one hand 

 by dissimilarity of physical conditions for the dissimilarity of the 

 inhabitants of these two continents, and on the other hand by simi- 

 larity of conditions for the uniformity of the same types in each 

 during the late tertiary periods. Nor can it be pretended that it is 

 an immutable law that Marsupials should have been solely or chiefly 

 produced in Australia, or that Edentata and other American types 

 should have been solely produced in South America ; for we know 

 that Europe, in ancient times, was peopled by numerous marsupials ; 

 and I have shown in the publications above alluded to, that in America 

 the law of distribution of terrestrial mammals was widely different 

 from what it now is. North America formerly partook strongly of the 

 southern half of the continent, and the southern half was formerly 

 more closely allied than it now is to the northern half In a similar 

 manner we know, from Falconer and Cautley's discoveries, that 

 Northern India was formerly more closely related, in its mammals, 

 to Africa than it is at the present time. Analogous facts could be 

 given in relation to the distribution of marine animals." 



These facts are very startling, and would be still more so if the 

 relationship upon which Mr. Darwin lays so much stress could be 

 traced through any extent of contiguous geological formations. Most 

 of the examples adduced refer to the upper tertiary and post-tertiary 

 beds, and only support contiguity of descent with existing species. 

 So far, indeed, it is but fair, on Mr. Darwin's own assumption, to take 

 the evidence he brings forward, respecting Europe being peopled in 

 ancient times by marsupials which are now limited to Australia, as 

 implying a break in the genealogical thread; for if marsupials did not 

 exist in Australia during the age they peopled Europe, we have a 

 strong plea for assuming the subsequent special creation of the modern 

 Australian kangaroo and its allies; and if the far isolated continents 

 ofEurope and Australia were contemporaneously peopled with mar- 

 supials, it affords a striking exception to the evidence in support of 



