ANIMATED NATURE. 



131 



as far as zoological researches have yet gone, \t rilay 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 Australia.'"* 



It doea not appear that the diveraity between the simi- 

 lar regions of Africa, Aaia, 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 eider 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 eider 

 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 maybe said, upon the whole, to recede from that 

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

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

 * Researches, 4th edition, i. 95. 



