| The fact of the forms of life changing simultaneously, in the above large sense, at distant parts of the world, has greatly struck those admirable observers, MM. de Verneuil and d'Archiac. After referring to the parallelism of the palæozoic forms of life in various parts of Europe, they add,
struck by this strange sequence, we turn our attention to North America, and there discover a series of analogous phenomena, it will appear certain that all these modifications of species, their extinction, and the introduction of new ones, cannot be owing to mere changes in marine currents or other causes more or less local and temporary, but depend on general laws which govern the whole animal kingdom." M. Barrande has made forcible remarks to precisely the same effect. It is, indeed, quite futile to look to changes of currents, climate, or other physical conditions, as the cause of these great mutations in the forms of life throughout the world, under the most different climates. We must, as Barrande has remarked, look to some special law. We shall see this more clearly when we treat of the present distribution of organic beings, and find how slight is the relation between the physical conditions of various
and the nature of their inhabitants. |
| This great fact of the parallel succession of the forms of life throughout the world, is explicable on the theory of natural selection. New species are formed by
→having
some advantage over older forms; and
forms, which are already dominant, or have some advantage over the other forms in their own country,
→give birth to the greatest number of
new varieties or incipient
We have distinct evidence on this head, in the plants which are dominant, that is, which are commonest
→and
most widely diffused,
→producing
the greatest number of new varieties. It is also natural that the
varying, and far-spreading species, which
invaded to a certain extent the territories of other species, should be those which would have the best chance of spreading still further, and of giving rise in new countries to
varieties and species. The process of diffusion
often be very slow,
on climatal and geographical changes,
on strange accidents,
→and on the gradual acclimatisation of new species to the various climates through which they might have to pass, but
in the
→course of time
the dominant forms
generally succeed in
→spreading and would ultimately prevail. The diffusion would, it is probable, be slower with the terrestrial inhabitants of distinct continents than with the marine inhabitants of the continuous sea. We might therefore expect to find, as we
do find, a less strict
|
