ANIMATED NATURE. 



131 



as far as zoological researches have yet gone, it n &y be 

 asserted that no individual species are common to distant 

 regions. In parallel climates, analogous species replace 

 each other; sometimes, but not frequently, the same 

 genus is found in two separate continents ; but the spe- 

 cies which are natives of one region, are not identical 

 with corresponding races indigenous in the opposite he- 

 misphere. 



"A similar result arises when we compare the three 

 great intertropical regions, as well as the extreme spaces 

 of the three great continents, which advance into the tem- 

 perate climates of the southern hemisphere. 



" Thus, the tribes of simiae, (monkeys,) of the dog and 

 cat kinds, of pachyderms, including elephants, tapirs, rhi- 

 noceroses, hogs, of bats, of saurian and ophidian reptiles, 

 as well as of birds and other terrene animals are all diffe- 

 rent in the three great continents. In the lower depart- 

 ments of the mammiferous family we find that the bruta, 

 or edentata (sloths, armadillos, &c.) of Africa, are diffe- 

 rently organized from those of America, and these again 

 from the tribes found in the Maylayan archipelago and 

 Terra Australis."* 



It does not appear that the diversity between the simi- 

 lar regions of Africa, Asia, and America, is occasioned 

 in all instances by any disqualification of these countries 

 to support precisely the same genera or species. The ox, 

 horse, goat, &c, of the elder continent have driven and 

 extended themselves in the new ; and many of the indi- 

 genous tribes of America would no doubt flourish in cor- 

 responding climates in Europe, Asia, and Africa. It has, 

 however, been remarked by naturalists unacquainted 

 with the Macleay system, that the larger and more pow- 

 erful animals of their respective orders belong to the elder 

 continent, and that thus the animals of America, unlike 

 the features of inanimate nature, appear to be upon a 

 small scale. The swiftest and most agile animals, and a 

 large proportion of those most useful to man, are also na- 

 tives of the elder continent. On the other hand, the bulk 

 of the edentata, a group remarkable for defects and mean- 

 ness of organization, are American. The zoology of 

 America may be said, upon the whole, to recede from that 

 of Asia, " and perhaps in a greater degree," adds Dr. Pri- 

 chard, " from that of Africa." A much greater recession 

 * Researches, 4th edition, i. 95. 



