Novas5.| GEORGE VBACR’S LIFE (AND. WRITINGS. 22 
could one suppose that the islands had been originally peopled 
from the mainland six hundred miles away? Surely, he con- 
tended, isolation of faunas and floras, produced by the gradual 
subsidence of a mountainous area and its conversion into islands, 
would be a far simpler and more adequate explanation of the 
facts than the Darwinian theory of upheaval. Dr. Baur’s view 
met with derision in some quarters, but recently investigators 
of repute, like Giinther, Ratzel, Bottger, Ortmann, and Hems- 
ley, have cast their vote in his favor against Darwin, Wallace, 
A. Agassiz, Stearns, Dall, and Wolf. Ridgway, who has studied 
the birds, and Robinson and Greenman, who have studied the 
Galapagos plants collected by Dr. Baur, have taken a safe neu- 
tral ground. and await further evidence before expressing an 
opinion. 
Encouraged by the recognition of the subsidence theory, 
Dr. Baur began to test the faunas and floras of other islands in 
the Pacific in the same manner as he had tested those of the 
Galapagos. In his last paper in the American Naturalist he 
took up the distribution of various groups of animals (crusta- 
ceans, ants, frogs, lizards, and birds) on the Solomon and 
Fiji Islands, and in New Caledonia, in an endeavor to show 
that these islands, too, were of continental origin, contrary to 
prevailing opinion. He did not live to complete this paper, 
his last effort to break the bonds of authority and open to 
renewed discussion the question of the origin of island faunas 
and floras. The man to continue this work worthily has not 
yet risen among us. 
A LIST OF DR. BAUR’S WRITINGS. 
1. Der Tarsus der Vogel.und Dinosaurier. Eine Morphologische Studie. 
Inaugural-dissertation. Univers. Munchen. Leipzig, 1882, Wilh. 
Engelmann, pp. 1-44, 2 Taf. Same in Morph. Jahrb., Bd. 8, 1883, 
pp. 417-456, Taf. XIX and XX. : 
2. Der Carpus der Paarhufer. Eine Morphogenetische Studie. (Vorl. 
Mittheil.) Morph. Jahrb., Bd. 9, 1884, pp. 597-603. 
3. Dinosaurier und Vogel. Eine Erwiederung an Herrn Prof. W. Dames 
in Berlin. Morph. Jahrb., Bd. 10, 1885, pp. 446-454. 
