378 BUFPON 



later the Marquis de Spontin supplied Buffon with the 

 particulars of a case in which a she- wolf had produced a 

 litter of which a dog was the father.^ 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS 



The description of the lion in the Histoire Naturelle 

 (Vol. IX) led Buffon to remark that the so-called lion 

 of settlers in South America (the puma) was not the 

 lion of the Old World, but an animal peculiar to the 

 New World, as are most others found there. To support 

 this statement, he prepared and published in the same 

 volume lists of mammals (a) peculiar to the Old World, 

 (&) peculiar to the New World, (c) common to both. 

 From these lists he drew the interesting general con- 

 clusion that no large and conspicuous tropical animal is 

 shared by the eastern and western hemispheres. With 

 these chapters^ the connected discussion of the geo- 

 graphical distribution of animals may be said to begin ; 

 at least 1 am not aware of earlier remarks which are 

 more than statements of bare facts, such as the brief 

 notes contained in the Systema Natures of Linnaeus. 



The species common to the two great land-masses are 

 not found, says Buffon, in the southern, the equatorial, 

 or the north temperate regions, but only in the extreme 

 north,^ where alone two continents approach one 

 another and make it possible for animals to cross over. 



He makes bold to say* that birds and fishes, being 



' Suppt., Ill, p. 10, and VII, p. 161 ; Geoffroy, Ann. du Musium, Vol. IV, 

 p. 102, gives another instance. For more recent evidence see Darwin's 

 Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Chap. I. 



2 Vol. IX, pp. 97-128 (1761), and Vol. XIV (1766). 



^Linnaeus, speaking in Biberg's name, liad already remarked that the species 

 of plants common to the Old and the New World are all of northern range 

 (Amain. Acad., Vol. II, 1751). 



'■Hist. Nat., Vol. IX, p. 106 (1761). 



