Modern Geography

ant distribution. An enormous amount of detailed investigation had been done before these generalisations were arrived at, and

is less close than that of the stationary plant, so that the subject is more difficult. Facts are accumulating on all sides, but the subject is still rather at the level of collecting information than at that of lay

ndence upon light, and of little direct importance to man. In considering animals, on the other hand, we cannot exclude the aquatic forms, which are often of great human importance. In many regions man depends largely, sometimes eve

cuous feature in any complete scientific library and contain a mass of useful material. The Challenger expedition was followed by many others, European and American, and the result is that we now know a great deal about marine ani

zoological interest, is so remote from human life that we need not consider it. The pelagic forms include both the small delicate organisms which float passively with the ocean currents, and also powerful swimmers like many fish, and aquatic mammals such as whales and seals. The littoral forms live in the region which is within the reach of land influences, that is, from low-tide mark to th

aratus. The extensive shell-mounds found on many shores, e. g. on those of Denmark, show at how early a date man availed himself of the abundant food supply to be obtained on the shore rocks. All edible animals found in the sea are "fish" to maritime populations, but fish in the rest

of the food brought down by the rivers from the land. Again, many fish, or the organisms upon which fish feed, depend largely upon those minute plants called diatoms which float in the upper layers of the waters of the ocean. These are especially abun

same sort seems to occur with fishes. In warm seas the number of species is very great, while in colder seas there are fewer species, but those which do occur are sometimes found in vast numbe

ld climates rather than hot ones, and because of the dependence of so many forms on the Continenta

o-called "banks," feeds myriads of cod. The mingling of the waters brought by the cold Labrador currents with those brought

on the surface of the Continental Shelf. Fish are much more abundant here than on the narrower shelf on the western coast

the North Sea. But this is an economic and not a zoological statement, for the Mediterranean is in reality richer in fish species than the North Sea, in this respect, as in some others, approaching tropical regions. Among the e

greatly prized in those countries where the better-flavoured marine fish can be obt

important, but the fisheries in both cases are insignificant when compared with those of western North America. Salmon are inhabitants of temperate waters, and in North America do not extend further south than the rivers flowing in

th the tropics. The salmon family is confined to the northern hemisphere, and the carp family, though not peculiar, is largely represented in the north. To it belong the whitefish, which form important food

nt is to note that for the globe at large zoologists employ zoogeographical divisions ba

p oceans, were much the same when the existing mammals were evolved as at present. This naturally simplifies the problem, for if we divided the globe into regions on the basis of the dis

ormer land connection between the two regions. The difficulty which most land mammals find in crossing mountain chains, or deserts, or considerable extents of water, makes it easy to define zoogeographical regions separated from one

of Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, that is, of the land hemisphere, while South America, which was for long isolated from North America, has

s land mammals in several respects. Though long separated from South America it has been connected long enough for some of the southern forms to find their way northwards, so that we find skunks, raccoons, and other mammals strikingly different fro

out a hundred and fifty degrees of longitude, there is great general similarity in the land animals. To the south, on the other hand, the Atlas mountains and the African desert cut off the greater part of the continent of Africa, and eastwards the transverse m

niform zoological region, stretching right across Europe and tempera

and the larger wild animals have thus been exterminated. Asia, with its northern forests and its more southerly steppes, has always been a great reservoir of life, which has periodically overflowed into Europe. Som

de in this direction have been tentative only. Generally, we may say that the mammals of Central Europe are of the woodland type, but no detailed classification into steppe and woodland an

cluding the anteaters, etc., of South America, Africa and India, is entirely unrepresented in Europe. Another, the Cetaceans, or whales,

with six which have European repres

or monkeys

ating mammals, such as mo

tera,

ls, including horses, catt

ters, including lions,

als, among which are rat

st land mammals, and their size and conspicuous nature have led to the gradual replacement of the wild forms by domesticated ones. Only a very few, such as deer, wild goats (ibex), the wild boar, the wild sheep (moufflon) of Corsica,

ca, where there were very few ungulates till the white man brought his flocks and herds, the rodents were very numerous and reached a great size. Again, the operations of agriculture give the rodents enormous artificial sources of food-supply, and the number of man's

en the struggle was keen, an enormous fertility. Many of the rodents are steppe animals, and s

increases the food-supply all round, and at another give rise to semi-desert conditions with a resulting enormous death-rate. The steppe organisms, then, must be very fertile because of the risks of their environment, and the Asiatic

ops. Rabbits are similarly very destructive where special precautions are not taken. Even the porcupine of southern Europe is capable of doing considerable damage. Less serious enemies of man are such forms as the following:-lemmings; marmots, of which there are two forms, an Alpine and an Asiatic, the latter extending like the other steppe animals into the plains of central Europe; beavers; squirrels; do

h the progress of civilisation; thus the lion has wholly disappeared from Europe, wolf and bear are almost gone, but a considerable number of smaller forms still remain, such as badger, genet, wolverene, lynx, wild

nean region possesses a richer fauna than central Europe, both as regards mammals

lies on the direct line between the northern breeding grounds of many species and the southern winter quarters, gives Europe a very rich bird fauna. The British Islands owe to their peculiarly mi

cher fauna than countries farther north. Some interesting southern forms, such as pelican, flam

twenty-one species of reptiles in central Europe, while there are fifty-nine in southern Europe, and no less than a hundred and forty in the Mediterranean region taken in the large sense

eating forms. In the warmer parts of Europe every wall or patch of rock seems alive with lizards in th

something about insects, which are of enormous imp

most important forms are the following:-Mosquitoes and gnats transmit such diseases as malaria, yellow fever, and more horrible diseases still, due to the presence in the blood of small parasitic worms. Tsetse flies carry sleeping sickness, and also transmit t

e widely distributed. In parts of the Mediterranean area their presence is associated with the prevalence of malaria, which has existed there for a

. Their disappearance seems to be due to drainage, which diminishes the breeding places of the mosquitoes, and also to the progress of agriculture, for ponds which form on rich, well-manured land are apparently unsuited to mosquito larv?. The subject is of great geographic

soul had been destroyed by the deadly sleeping sickness transmitted by this fly. We can hardly suppose that such facts are without a parallel in human history; and man's distribution over the surface of t

undra, which render life almost intolerable there for both man and beast in summer. Even within the British Islands the uncultivated and undrained regions are often badly infested with small blood-sucking flies, and their numbers must have been vastly greater in the old days before drainage and intensive cultivation had reduced them. It is quite possibl

o northern France, is the curious Praying Mantis, a predatory insect belonging to the same order as the locust. It is an eastern form, which, like so many others, has taken advantage of the mild climate of western Europe to extend its range far beyond w

in many parts of Europe, those migratory forms which possess that power of periodic enormous multiplication which we have already noted so frequently among grassland animals. The migratory instinct only seems to develop when the numbers have greatly increased in any given loc

ile to the north there were other herds of reindeer, which were never tamed by the inhabitants of North America as they were in the Old World by the Lapps and others. The musk-ox is another interesting animal found in the north of America. It once also lived in Europe, but died out long ago. Just as the coniferous forest and tundra in Asia produce many small fur-bearing animals, so do the forest and tundra of North America. Deer are present as in the Old World, though they