Origin of Species Variorum

Comparison with 1872

CHAPTER XIII.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION— continued .

Distribution of fresh-water productions— On the inhabitants of oceanic islands— Absence of Batrachians and of terrestrial Mammals— On the relation of the inhabitants of islands to those of the nearest mainland— On colonisation from the nearest source with subsequent modification— Summary of the last and present chapter.

Fresh-water Productions .

AS lakes and river systems are separated from each other by barriers of land, it might have been thought that fresh-water productions would not have ranged widely within the same country, and as the sea is apparently a still more formidable barrier, that they would never have extended to distant countries. But the case is exactly the reverse. Not only have many fresh-water species, belonging to .. different classes, an enormous range, but allied species prevail in a remarkable manner throughout the world. When first collecting in the fresh waters of Brazil, I well remember feeling much surprise at the similarity of the fresh-water insects, shells, &c., and at the dissimilarity of the surrounding terrestrial beings, compared with those of Britain.

But the wide ranging power of fresh-water productions ... can, I think, in most cases be explained by their having become fitted, in a manner highly useful to them, for short and frequent migrations from pond to pond, or from stream to stream within their own countries; and liability to wide dispersal would follow from this capacity as an almost necessary consequence. We can here consider only a few cases; of these, some of the most difficult to explain are presented by fish.

Text in this page (from paragraph 200, sentence 210 to paragraph 200, sentence 300, word 3) is not present in 1872

CHAPTER XII.

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION— continued .

AS lakes and river-systems are separated from each other by barriers of land, it might have been thought that fresh-water productions would not have ranged widely within the same country, and as the sea is apparently a still more impassable barrier, that they never would have extended to distant countries. But the case is exactly the reverse. Not only have many fresh-water species, belonging to quite different classes, an enormous range, but allied species prevail in a remarkable manner throughout the world. I well remember, when first collecting in the fresh waters of Brazil, feeling much surprise at the similarity of the fresh-water insects, shells, &c., and at the dissimilarity of the surrounding terrestrial beings, compared with those of Britain.

But this power in fresh-water productions of ranging widely, though so unexpected, can, I think, in most cases be explained by their having become fitted, in a manner highly useful to them, for short and frequent migrations from pond to pond, or from stream to stream; and liability to wide dispersal would follow from this capacity as an almost necessary consequence. We can here consider only a few cases. ↑ In regard to