ANOMALIES. 
281 
It remains to be observed, that there are a certain 
number of facts in the Geography of Animals which 
do not appear to come under any law, nor are they 
explainable by, or referable to any cause of which 
we have knowledge. No species of animal is cos¬ 
mopolitan, but the extent of geographic range of 
species varies very largely. The greatness of this 
extent however, is, except in a comparatively few 
cases, so ordered, that there are certain divisions of 
the globe inhabited by races of animals peculiar to 
them, these races defining as it were by their 
limits, the zoological divisions of the earth. Thus, 
with a few exceptions (not considering those cases 
in the northern parts, where the two continents 
join or approximate,) the Fauna of America is pe¬ 
culiar to it, and the same may be said of Australia, 
with the difference only of still fewer exceptions 
being present. Now, besides the exceptions to this 
rule of exclusive Faunas, the ranges of animals 
within their zoological divisions is frequently very 
extensive ; whilst on the other hand, the limits of 
very many are extremely circumscribed, sometimes 
a small spot of land, or a single river being the 
extent of the habitat; in all of which cases, no clue 
to the cause of such peculiarities can be discovered. 
Indeed, unless we at once confess that animals oc¬ 
cupy stations on the earth assigned to them by the 
will of the Creator and determined only by a 
Providence and an Omnipotence perfectly inscru¬ 
table by us, we must be content to belieye that 
animal distribution depends on circumstances con¬ 
nected with the constitution of the species of the 
nature of which we are ignorant, and are likely to 
continue so. It is not enough to point out instances 
of evident adaptation of animals to the circum¬ 
stances which surround them, or to show that their 
peculiar food is found around them ; for it might 
easily be demonstrated, that in numerous cases the 
