78 BBITISH ASSOCIATIOTT FOE 



such is by no means the case with respect to the portions of dry land now termed 

 continents and islands. The incalculable vistas of time past, into which the same 

 science has thrown light, are also shown to have periods during which the relative 

 positions of land and sea have been ever changing. 



Already the directions, and to a certain extent the forms of the submerged tracts 

 that once joined what now are islands to continents, and which once united now 

 separate or nearly disjoined continents by broad tracts of continuity, begin to be 

 laid down in geological maps, addressing to the eye such successive and gradually 

 progressive alterations of the earth's surface. These phenomena shalio our confi- 

 dence in the conclusion, that the Ai)teryx of New Zealand and the Red-grouse of 

 England were distinct creations in and for those islands resj)ectively. Always, 

 also, it may be well to bear in mind that by the word " creation " the zoologist 

 means " a process he knows not what." Science has not yet ascertained the 

 secondiry causes that operated when "the earth brought forth grass, and herb 

 yielding seed after his kind," and when '• the waters brought forth abundantly 

 the moving creature that hath life." And supposing both the fact and the whole 

 process of the so-called " spontaneous generation" of a fruit-bearing tree, or of a 

 fish, were scientifically dem mstrated, we should still retain as strongly the idea, 

 which is the chief of the "mode" or " group of ideas" we call " creation," viz. : 

 that the process was ordained by and liad originated from an all wise and power- 

 ful First Cause of all things. When, therefore, the present peculiar relation of 

 the Red-grouse {Tetrao scoticus) to Biitain and Iieland — and I cite it as one of a 

 large class of instances in Geographical Zoology — is enumerated by the zoologist 

 as evidence of a distinct creation of the bird in and for such islands, he chiefly 

 expresses that he knows not how the Red-grouse came to be there and there ex- 

 clusively ; signifying also by this mode of expressing such ignorance, his belief 

 that both the bird and the islands owed their origin to a great first Creative 

 Cause. And this analysis of the real meaning of the phrase "distinct creation," 

 has led me to suggest whether, in aiming to define the primary zoological pro- 

 vinces of the globe, we may not be trenching upon a provmce of knowledge be- 

 yond our present capacities ; at least in the judgment of Lord Bacon, commenting 

 upon man's efforts to pierce into the " dead beginnings of things." 



On the few occasions in which I have been led to offer observations on the pro- 

 bable cause of the extinction of species, the chief weight has been given to those 

 gradual changes in the conditions of a country affecting the due supply of suste- 

 nance to animals in a state of nature. I have also pointed out the characters in 

 the animals themselves calculated to render them most obnoxious to such extirpa- 

 ting influences ; and on one occasion I have applied the remarks to the explana- 

 tion of so many of the larger species of particular groups of animals having 

 become extinct, whilst smaller species of equal antiquity have remained. In 

 proportion to its bulk is the difficulty of the contest which, as a living organized 

 whole, the individual of such species has to maintain against the surrounding 

 agencies that are ever tending to dissolve the vital bond and subjugate the living 

 matter to the ordinary chemical and physical forces. Any changes, therefore, in 

 such external agencies as a species may have been originally adapted to exist in, 

 will militate against that existence in a degree proportionate, perhaps in a geo- 



