Author: H. Beaumont Small

Publisher: Forgotten Books

Published: 2017-12-15

Total Pages: 118

ISBN-13: 9780332920467

Excerpt from The Animals of North America The most natural supposition is, that the all-wise Creator placed each species where it was permanently destined to live; and that from these different centres of creation, combinations have so multiplied between contiguous regions, as to form the various races of animal life. When we find a country possessing a group or groups of animals not found elsewhere; we may at once set down that as being the centre of a peculiar creation. In the location of many species, nature has placed various limits, and the spaces occupied by them are most unequal. For example: the Kangaroo and Ornithorhyncus are confined to New Holland; the Grizzly Bear to the Rocky Mountains; the Dodo, now extinct, to the Mauritius; whilst the Swallow, the Crow, and the Fox, extend to every known region. The principal cause of limitation is doubtless connected with the unequal tem perature. Of localities; certain species which thrive in one climate, perishing under the influence of another - also the nature of vegetation in one country, and the absence of it in another, - as in the Polar regions, - confining to the former the larger beasts of prey, dependent on herbivorous animals as their food, with the exception of, .in the latter, those that subsist on fish. The number of Species increase as we near the tropics, and there it is where Nature has been most lavish in the diversity of life, beauty of color, strangeness of form, and greatness of proportion. The present total number of living Species which has been satisfactorily made out and ascertained, exceeds, according to Agassiz. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.