Ch. IX.] 
SPECIES OLDER THAN THEIR STATIONS. 
115 
perhaps, no less surprise at the great vicissitude which it has 
undergone during the same period. 
We have seen that a large portion of Sicily has been con- 
verted from sea to land since the Mediterranean was peopled 
with the living species of testacea and zoophytes. The newly 
emerged surface, therefore, must, during this modern zoological 
epoch, have been inhabited for the first time with the terrestrial 
plants and animals which now abound in Sicily. It is fair to 
infer, that the existing terrestrial species are, for the most part, 
of as high antiquity as the marine, and if this be the case, a 
large proportion of the plants and animals, now found in the 
tertiary districts in Sicily, must have inhabited the earth before 
the newer Pliocene strata were raised above the waters. The 
plants of the Flora of Sicily are common, almost without ex- 
ception, to Italy or Africa, or some of the countries surrounding 
the Mediterranean *, so that we may suppose the greater part 
of them to have migrated from pre-existing lands, just as the 
plants and animals of the Phlegraean fields have colonized 
Monte Nuovo, since that mountain was thrown up in the six- 
teenth century. 
We are brought, therefore, to admit the curious result, that 
the flora and fauna of the Val di Noto, and some other moun- 
tainous regions of Sicily, are of higher antiquity than the coun- 
try itself, having not only flourished before the lands were 
raised from the deep, but even before they were deposited be- 
neath the waters. Such conclusions throw a new light on the 
adaptation of the attributes and migratory habits of animals and 
plants, to the changes which are unceasingly in progress in the 
inanimate world. It is clear that the duration of species is so 
Teat, that they are destined to outlive many important revolu- 
tions in the physical geography of the earth, and hence those 
innumerable contrivances for enabling the subjects of the ani- 
mal and vegetable creation to extend their range, the inhabitants 
* Professor Viviani of Genoa informed me, that, considering the great extent of 
Sicily, it was remarkable that its flora produced scarcely any, if any pecu/ia?' indi- 
ye.nous species, whereas there are several in Corsica, and some other Mediterranean, 
islands, 
I % 
