Origin of Species Variorum

somewhat .. different; for it is not likely that all the same arctic species will have been left on mountain-ranges far distant from each other, and have survived there ever since; they will, also, in all probability, have become mingled with ancient Alpine species, which must have existed on the mountains before the commencement of the Glacial epoch, and which during its coldest period will have been temporarily driven down to the plains; they will, also, have been exposed to somewhat different climatal influences. Their mutual relations will thus have been in some degree disturbed; consequently they will have been liable to modification; and this we find has been the case; for if we compare the present Alpine plants and animals of the several great European mountain-ranges one with another, though many of the species remain identically the same, some exist as varieties, some .. as doubtful forms or sub-species, and some as certainly distinct yet closely allied species representing each other on the several ranges.

In the foregoing illustration I have assumed that at the commencement of our imaginary Glacial period, the arctic productions were as uniform round the polar regions as they are at the present day. But it is necessary also to include many sub-arctic and .. some few .. temperate forms, for some of these are the same on the lower mountain-slopes and on the plains of North America and Europe; and it may be .. asked how I account for this degree of uniformity in the sub-arctic and .. temperate forms round the world, at the commencement of the real Glacial period. At the present day, the sub-arctic and northern temperate productions of the Old and New Worlds are separated from each other by the whole Atlantic Ocean and by the .. northern part of the Pacific. During the Glacial period, when the .. inhabitants of the Old and New Worlds lived