ADDRESS AT MANCHESTEE 183 



I have always looked on the study of Geographical 

 Distribution as having a most important bearing on 

 Evolution — ^but the greater part of this bearing would 

 really be obscuredj if your doctrines be correct. I do 

 not know that there is much use in having " Regions " 

 at all, but certainly there is very little if they are to be 

 considered for the most part identical with the main 

 division, ordinarily accepted by geographers. I have, 

 however, a strong belief in " Faunas," as you may see 

 from what I foreshadowed at the end of my British 

 Association address at Manchester some years ago. 



Yours very truly, 



Alfred Newton. 



The passage in his address at Manchester, to which 

 allusion is made in the foregoing letter, so well exhibits 

 Newton's broadness of mind that it may fittingly be 

 quoted here : — 



... I would, by way of conclusion, offer a few re- 

 marks on the aspect which the subject of Geographical 

 Distribution presents to me. Some of us zoologists — ^I 

 am conscious of having myself been guilty of what I am 

 about to condemn — ^have been apt to speak of Zoological 

 Regions as if they were, and always had been, fixed areas. 

 I am persuaded ibhat if we do this we fall into an error as 

 grievous as that of our predecessors, who venerated the 

 fixity of species. One of the best tests of a biologist is 

 his being able to talk or write of " species " without 

 believing that the term is more than a convenient counter 

 for the exchange of ideas. In the same way I hold that 

 a good biologist should talk or write of " Zoological 

 Regions." The expression no doubt arose out of the 

 belief, now scouted by all, in Centres of Creation ; and, 

 as sometimes used, the vice of its birth still chngs to it. 

 To my mind the true meaning of the phrase " Zoological 

 Region " is that of an area inhabited by a fauna which is, 

 so to speak, a " function " of the period of its develop- 

 ment and prevalence over a great part of the habitable 



