GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. Ill 



other. Sometimes they are at such distances from one another as not 

 to reach, without one coming entirely out; and sometimes they are 

 both out. 



This need only take place where there are but few in number. Some 

 one shall come out when there is no mate near to engage and be 

 engaged. They do not oppose the same parts to each other, as head to 

 head, and of course tail to tail, but in contrary directions, by which 

 means the male parts of each are opposed to the female of each. Some 

 way behind the anterior end there is an annular part which belongs to 

 one of the parts of the sexes, and, before this, about an inch, there are 

 two orifices, one on each side of the under surface, which I suppose 

 belong to the other parts of the sex. They copulate before they are 

 above one third or fourth grown in size. 



They generally come out of their holes about nine o'clock in the 

 evening ; and in the morning, by daylight, we find them united, and by 

 ten o'clock they are all retired again to their holes. When it is cold, 

 or when there is a hoar-frost, they are not to be found in this act. 

 They continue in the act for perhaps about twelve hours, but whether 

 this time of retiring arises from the influence of the time of day, or by 

 being disturbed by what is passing during the day, I will not say. 



I placed marks to several in the act, to see if the same repeated their 

 operations next morning ; but they did not, although there were many 

 that were in the act. 



Geographical Distribution of Animals. 



The locality of some animals would make us believe that their forma- 

 tion was of late date when compared to the world ; or else that the 

 present face of the globe was very old or original. The first we can 

 hardly suppose, and as to the last " very old," if that was the case it 

 would still show that the origin of animals was progressive and of course 

 local. 



It is a curious circumstance in the natural history of animals to find 

 most of the northern animals the same both on the Continent of Ame- 

 rica and what is called the Old World; while those of the warmer 

 parts of both continents are not so. Thus we find the bear, fox, wolf, 

 elk, rein-deer, ptarmigan, &c, in the northern parts of both. How- 

 ever, birds are not to be considered as entirely explanatory of any 

 theory of this kind, as they can so easily move from place to place : yet 

 if we can show that it is upon the same principle that the same animals 

 occur in the northern parts of both Continents, one fact then explains 

 the other. 



