358 Geographical Distribution of Crustacea. 
count it is a still better proof of our principle, because there is 
no occasion to suspect migration or any other kind of transfer. 
It is a creation of species in these distant provinces, which are 
almost identical, owing to the physical resemblances of the seas; 
and it shows at least, that a very elose approximation to identity 
may be consistent with Divine Wisdom. 
The resemblance of the New Zealand and British seas has 
been remarked upon as extending also to the occurrence in both 
of the genera Portunus and Cancer. It is certainly a wonderful 
fact that New Zealand should have a closer resemblance in its 
Crustacea to Great Britain, its antipode, than to any other part of 
the world—a resemblance running parallel, as we cannot fail to 
observe, with its geographical form, its insular position, and its 
situation among the temperate regions of the ocean. Under 
such circumstances, there must be many other more intimate re- 
semblances, among which we may yet distinguish the special 
cause which led to the planting of peculiar British genera in this 
stances are alike; and we must determine by special and thor- 
ough investigation, whether one or the other cause was the ac- 
tual origin of the distribution in each particular case. Thus it 
must be with reference to the wide distribution of species in the 
Oriental tropics, as well as in the European temperate regions, 
and the Temperate zone of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. 
XII. With respect to the creation of identical species in dis- 
tant regions, we would again point to its direct dependence on @ 
near identity of physical condition. Although we cannot admit 
that circumstances or physical forces have ever created a species 
(as like can only beget like, and physical force must result sim- 
ply in physical force), and while we see in all nature the free act 
of the Divine Being, we may still believe the connexion between 
the calling into existence of a species and the physical circum- 
