KIRBY ON THE INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. 589 
islands that are inhabited by peculiar animals, were once con¬ 
nected with Asia and Africa by the intervention of lands that 
have since been submerged.^’ The author now produces autho¬ 
rities to support his opinions. Plato, in hisTimaeus,” he says, 
“ relates a tradition concerning an island called Atlantis,* which 
he describes as bigger than Asia and Africa, situated before the 
pillars of Hercules, which, after an earthquake, was swallowed 
up by the sea. Now, if,” says the author, such an event as 
the submersion of the vast island of Plato did really happen, it 
surely would affect the whole terraqueous globe, produce con¬ 
vulsions far and wide, and cause various disruptions in its crust, 
and elevations in other parts from the bed of the ocean.” This 
throws some weight into the scale in support of the author’s 
opinions, if it be true (credat Judaeus); for thus a way would 
be open, though certainly a circuitous one, for the migration of 
those animals to America that are found in no other part of the 
world; and supposing Asia to have been disrupted from it at 
Behring’s Straits, even then they could scarcely have ascended to 
so hiorh a latitude in search of their destined home. 
Such extraordinary opinions as these, however, do not merit a 
moment’s consideration ; and, consequently, it must be admitted, 
that the animals of America originated on the very soil which, 
to the present day, they still inhabit. 
Buffbn, we believe, was one of the first who advanced, that 
each kind had a determinate spot, which was its original abode ; 
and that from that region it afterwards issued, according to the 
perfection of its locomotive faculties, and spread through distant 
regions. 
Asia has been in all times regarded as the country where the 
human race had its beginning, received its first education, and 
from which its increase was spread over the rest of the globe. 
This is the native abode of rice, the vine, pulse, fruit, and all 
other vegetable productions from which man draws his nourish¬ 
ment. Here, too, all the animals are found wild which man has 
tamed for his use and carried with him in his travels—the cow, 
horse, ass, sheep, goat, camel, pig, dog, cat, and even the ser¬ 
viceable rein-deer, his only attendant and friend in the icy deserts 
of the frozen polar regions. 
The collection of beings such as these in one central point, 
and their gradual diffusion over the whole globe, is quite con¬ 
sistent with history ; and from what we know of their organic ca¬ 
pabilities, they are capable of sustaining with man in his migra¬ 
tions great varieties of climate, food, reproduction, and manner of 
livingr. But when we look to the rest of the mammalia, we find 
O , , n 
at every point abundant proofs of animals being confined to 
VOL. VIII. 4 L 
