EVOLUTIONARY VIEWS OF BUFFON 



205 



cepted, to alterations, changes, and variations of all 

 kinds. Being free to choose their own food and cli- 

 mate, they vary less than domestic animals vary." * ff 



The Buffonian factor of the direct influence of 

 climate is not in general of so thoroughgoing a char- 

 acter as usually supposed by the commentators of 

 Buffon. He generally applies it to the superficial 

 changes, such as the increase or decrease in the 

 amount of hair, or similar modifications not usually 

 regarded as specific characters. The modifications 

 due to the direct influence of climate may be effected, 

 he says, within even a few generations. 



Under the head of geographical distribution (in 

 tome ix., 1761), in which subject Buffon made his 

 most original contribution to exact biology, he claims 

 to have been the first " even to have suspected " that 

 not a single tropical species is common to both 

 eastern and western continents, but that the animals 

 common to both continents are those adapted to a tem- 

 perate or cold climate. He even anticipates the sub- 

 ject of migration in past geological times by supposing 

 that those forms travelled from the Old World either 

 over some land still unknown, or " more probably " 

 over territory which has long since been submerged.f 



The mammoth "was certainly the greatest and 

 strongest of all quadrupeds, but it has disappeared ; 

 and if so, how many smaller, feebler, and less re- 

 markable species must have perished without leaving 

 us any traces or even hints of their having existed ? 

 How many other species have changed their nature, 



* Tome vi., pp. 59-60 (1756). f Butler, /. t., pp. 145-146. 



