INTRODUCTION. 



THE GBOGEAPHICAL DISTEIBUTION AND MIGEATION OF 

 GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL. 



WE intend to devote the opening pages of the present volume to a brief 

 introductory chapter on the geographical distribution and migration of 

 Game Birds and Wild Fowl. In our opinion the science of avine distribution, 

 or dispersal, is still most imperfectly understood, notwithstanding the vast 

 progress that has already been made during the latter half of the present century. 

 The geographical distribution of Life, if we mistake not, is governed by law, and 

 therefore subservient to certain definite influences, and is not the fortuitous 

 process that naturalists, almost without exception, believe it to be. We have 

 too much evidence to suggest, if we come to study the phenomenon in a critical 

 manner, that the dispersal of life over the globe is not without a plan. The 

 phenomenon of migration (so inseparably associated with geographical distri- 

 bution) appears also to be as little understood, and we fear that this will remain so 

 as long as naturalists decline to accept this apparently unquestionable conclusion. 

 In certain directions naturalists have much to congratulate themselves upon. 

 With the dawn of the Darwinian epoch the importance of the distribution of 

 living forms began to be recognised as a factor throwing unexpected light upon the 

 evolution of species. With the stimulus given to the new science of geographical 

 dispersal by Dr. Sclater, who sketched out the world into six great faunal 

 regions, guided largely by the avine facies of the Continental areas, great things 

 have been accomplished. Dr. Sclater's scheme was followed a few years later by 

 that of Huxley, in which the earth was separated into four primary regions, the 

 divisions being latitudinal instead of longitudinal. Eight years later still Wallace 

 published his monumental work on the geographical distribution of animals, 

 perhaps best described as a detailed elaboration of Dr. Sclater's scheme. It is 

 unnecessary here to allude to the labours of other naturalists, for beyond slight 

 modifications the general ideas of Dr. Sclater and Huxley have been adopted. 

 Neither can more be said for that branch of the subject concerning the means of 

 dispersal, all writers hitherto regarding these as more or less fortuitous, and in 

 a great measure dependent upon the physical mutations of the earth's surface. 

 These views involve the acceptance of Polar Dispersal, or, in other words, that 

 Life has gradually spread in endless forms from the poles to the equator, 

 influenced from time to time by glacial epochs. It is perhaps unnecessary here 

 to add anything to what I have already written upon the subject of avine 



