150 Ipswich Museum. 



arctic latitudes, where the food of the species is wholly absent. If 

 we are still to apply the current hypothesis to this problem in Natural 

 History, we must suppose that the pair or pairs of the Rhea that 

 started from the highest temperate zone in Asia capable of sustaining 

 their life, must have also been the same individuals which began to 

 propagate their kind when they had reached the corresponding tem- 

 perate latitude of America. But no individuals of the Rhea have 

 remained in the prairies or in any part of North America — they are 

 limited to the middle and southern division of the South American 

 continent. And now, finally, consider the abode of the little Apteryx 

 at the Antipodes, in the comparatively small insulated patch of dry 

 land formed by New Zealand. Let us call to mind its very restricted 

 means of migration — the wings reduced to the minutest rudiments, 

 the feet webless like the common fowl's, its power of swimming as 

 feeble ! How could it ever have traversed six hundred miles of sea, 

 that separate it from the nearest land intervening between New Zea- 

 land and Asia? How pass from the southern extremity of that con- 

 tinent to the nearest island of the Indian Archipelago, and so from 

 member to member of that group to Australia — and yet leave no 

 trace behind of such migration by the arrest of any descendants of 

 the migratory generations in Asia itself, or in any island between Asia 

 and New Zealand 1 



If these facts were inexplicable on the hypothesis of the dispersion 

 of the species of the air-breathing animals from a singular Asiatic 

 centre, we must next endeavour to collect analogous facts, and classify 

 them, and so try to explain intelligibly, i. e. agreeably with the facts, 

 the true law or cause of the actual geographical distribution of ani- 

 mals. The time allotted to the lecture obliged the Professor to 

 limit his remarks on this subject to the quadrupeds of the class 

 Mammalia. 



The dry land of our planet might be divided, in relation to this 

 inquiry, into the following parts : — 1. Asia and Europe, which ob- 

 viously formed one natural tract or continent ; 2. Africa ; 3. North 

 America; 4. South America ; 5. Australia; 6. Scattered islands, as 

 New Zealand, separated by hundreds of miles of sea from any con- 

 tinent. The most characteristic aboriginal quadrupeds of the first 

 division were the elephant, rhinoceros, ox, deer, tiger, bear, hyaena, 

 beaver, hares and rabbits, certain kinds of ape and monkey. In 

 Africa, the quadrupeds were for the most part similar as to genus, 

 but different in species. The elephant differed in the structure of 

 its teeth and feet from that of Asia. The rhinoceros of Africa had 

 two horns, that of Asia one horn. The camel of Asia has two 

 humps, that of Africa one hump. The lion represented in Africa 

 the tiger of Bengal. The hyaena of Southern Africa was spotted, that 

 of Asia was striped. There were also several quadrupeds of which 

 no species now exists in Asia, and which are peculiar to Africa ; e. g. 

 the hippopotamus, the giraffe, the orycteropus, &c. Africa is also 

 remarkable for its numerous species of large antelopes, of which but 

 few exist in Asia, and none at all in America. In the northern 

 division of the American continent, many of the mammalian genera 



