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Ch. XLLj EEFERENCE TO THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 



411 



may liave become peopled witli the animals and plants now 

 inliabiting them. The absence or abundance of each, class, 

 the nmnber of species common to the nearest continent, the 

 range, whether limited or extensive, of each species through 

 different islands or through different archipelagos, may throw 

 licrht on the question whether species have been independently 

 created, or whether they are modifications of pre-existing 



Natural 



Mammalia. 



—The first great fact for which we have to 

 account, is the entire absence of all indigenous Mammalia 

 except bats. Palma, one of the Canaries, is inhabited by an 



miOT 



^ ' 



to. that island in Miocene or Pliocene times. 



When we have travelled over large and fertile islands, 

 thirty miles or more in diameter, such as the Grand Canary 

 and Tenerrffe, and have seen how many domestic animals, 

 such as camels, horses, asses, dogs, sheep and pigs, they novv^ 

 support, we cannot but feel amazed that not even the smaller 

 wild animals, such as squirrels, field-mice, and weasels, should 

 be met with in a wild state. The reader may ask how such 

 quadrupeds could have reached an island like Madeira, more 

 than 360 miles from the nearest mainland ; but such a ques- 

 tion at once implies the admission, that an arbitrary exer- 



tion of creative power does not give origin to Mammalia in 



every region where conditions favourable to their support 

 may happen to exist. 



It Avas long ago remarked by Dr. Prichard,"^ that among 

 the various groups of fertile islands in the Pacific, no quadru- 

 peds, with the exception of a few bats, have been met with, 

 which might not be supposed, like the dog, the hog, and the 

 • rat, to have been conveyed thither from New Guinea by the 

 natives in canoes. What is more extraordinary, even the 

 large island of New Zealand, when first explored by Euro- 

 peans, was found to be destitute of indigenous Mammalia, ■ 

 except one species of rat and two bats, said to be different 

 from any found elsewhere. Bats have been seen ivandering 

 by day far over the Atlantic ocean, and two North American 



'^ Prichard, Phys. Hist, of Mankind, vol. i. p. 75. 



