THE DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES. 211 
For example, the long pectoral fins of the flying fish 
enable it to make long leaps through the air, after the 
manner of the grasshopper. Yet we 
can not say that the flying fish was 
meant to be the bird among fishes, for its nearest rela- 
tives are without wings, and the wing development is 
one of the latest acquisitions of the individual. Its 
flight is simply an exaggeration of the leaping or skim- 
ming which related forms with shorter fins accomplish. 
The growth of the fins goes on with the increase of this 
power, and greater power comes with the growth of the 
fins. Morphologically, a flying fish is even less like a 
bird than the humbler fishes from which it is de- 
scended, 
No phase in the history of systematic science is 
more instructive than the varying attitudes of the 
naturalist toward those local modifications of species 
called subspecies or geographical variations. 
The flying fish. 
It was early noticed that, while individuals of any. 
one species in any limited region are substantially alike, 
this apparent identity disappears with the 
examination of wider extent of territory. 
These differences were often too small 
to justify the formation or recognition 
of a new species, but too evident to be wholly neglected. 
Such subordinate species were termed by Linnzus varie- 
ties, and their geographical basis was often recognised. 
Thus under Homo sapiens, or aboriginal man, Linnzeus 
recognised four varieties—americanus, europaeus, asiaticus, 
and afer, besides the half-mythical monstrosus, based on 
traveller’s tales of Patagonians, Hottentots, and dwarfs. 
As with the varieties of man, so with those of other 
animals and plants, The individuals of England were 
not quite those of the same species in Italy, and those 
in more distant lands showed still greater peculiarities. 
Subspecies or 
geographical 
variations. 
