3 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTEIBUTION. 



may appear the circumstance that, in most cases, island faunas are 

 so eminently marked out from those of continental areas. 



Another peculiarity m faunal distribution is presented in the 

 fact that, while certain animal assemblages enjoy an almost limit- 

 less or universal extension, others, again, without apparent reason, 

 are circumscribed within limits of the opposite extreme. The trav- 

 eller to the most distant shores not infrequently recognises objects 

 that are familiar to him as those of his native home, although pos- 

 sibly, in the interval of his journey, he has completely lost sight 

 of their existence, so different might have been the creatures that 

 successively met his gaze. " When an Englishman travels by the 

 nearest sea-route from Great Britain to Northern Japan, he passes 

 by countries very unlike his own, both in aspect and natural pro- 

 ductions. The sunny isles of the Mediten-anean, the sands and 

 date-palms of Egypt, the arid rocks of Aden, the cocoa-groves of 

 Ceylon, the tiger-haunted jungles of Malacca and Singapore, the 

 fertile plains and volcanic peaks of Luzon, the forest-clad mountains 

 of Formosa, and the bare hills of China, pass successively in review; 

 till after a circuitous voyage of thirteen thousand miles he finds 

 himself at Hakodadi, in Japan. He is now separated from his 

 starting-point by the whole width of Europe and Northern Asia, 

 by an almost endless succession of plains and mountains, arid 

 deserts or icy plateaux, yet when he visits the interior of the coun- 

 try he sees so many familiar natural objects that he can hardly help 

 fancying he is close to his home. He finds the woods and fields 

 tenanted by tits, hedge-sparrows, wrens, wagtails, larks, red- 

 breasts, thrushes, buntings, and house-sparrows, some absolutely 

 identical with our own feathered friends, others so closely resem- 

 bling them that it requires a practised ornithologist to tell the differ- 

 ence. If he is fond of insects he notices many butterflies and a 

 host of beetles which, though on close examination they are found 

 to be distinct from ours, are yet of the same general aspect, and 

 seem just what might be expected in any part of Europe. There 

 are also, of course, many birds and insects which are quite new and 

 peculiar, but these are by no means so numerous or conspicuous 

 as to remove the general impression of a wonderful resemblance 

 between the productions of such remote islands as Britain and 

 Yesso."* 



* Wallace, " Island Life," p. 3. 



