But The Paragraphs Have A Certain Historical
Value, For They Put What Was Evidently An Important Idea To An
Accomplished Naturalist A Century Ago.
They present us, in that aspect,
with an interesting bit of pre-Darwinian generalisation.
"Before natural history had acquired a strict and appropriate language of
its own," wrote Peron,* (* Voyage de Decouvertes, 1824 edition 3 243.)
"when its methods were defective and incomplete, travellers and
naturalists confused under one name, in imitation of each other, so to
speak, animals which were essentially different. There is no class of the
animal kingdom which, in the actual state of things, does not include
several orbicular species; that is to say, several species which are in
some degree common to all parts of the globe, however they may be
modified by geographical and climatic conditions. Other species, although
confined to certain latitudes, are, however, usually regarded as common
to all climates, and to all seas comprised within these latitudes. The
existence of these last animals is regarded as being independent of
latitude. To confine ourselves to marine species, one sees it constantly
repeated in books of the most estimable character, that the great whale
(Balaena mysticetus, Linn.) is found equally amidst the frozen waters of
Spitzbergen and in the Antarctic seas; that the sharks and seals of
various kinds are found in equally innumerable tribes in seas the
farthest apart in the two hemispheres; that the turtle and the tortoise
inhabit indifferently the Atlantic, the Indian, and the great equinoctial
oceans.
"Were one to consult only reason and analogy, such assertions would
appear to be doubtful, as a matter of experience they are found to be
absolutely false. Let any one glance at the evidence upon which these
pretended identities rest; one will then see that they exist only in the
names, and that there is not a single WELL-KNOWN animal belonging to the
northern hemisphere, which is not specifically different from all other
animals EQUALLY WELL KNOWN in the opposite hemisphere. I have taken the
trouble to make that difficult comparison in the case of the cetacea, the
seals, etc.; I have examined many histories of voyages; I have gathered
together all the descriptions of animals; and I have recognised important
differences between the most similar of these supposedly identical
species.
"Nobody, I dare say, has collected more animals than I have done in the
southern hemisphere. I have observed and described them in their own
habitat. I have brought several thousands of kinds to Europe; they are
deposited in the Natural History Museum at Paris. Let any one compare
these numerous animals with those of our hemisphere, and the problem will
soon be resolved, not only in regard to the more perfectly organised
species, but even as to those which are simpler in structure, and which,
in that regard, it would appear, should show less variety in nature...In
all that multitude of animals from the southern hemisphere, one will
observe that there is not one which can be precisely matched in northern
seas; and one will be forced to conclude from such a reflective
examination - such an elaborate and prolonged comparison - as I have been
forced to do myself, THAT THERE IS NOT A SINGLE SPECIES OF WELL-KNOWN
ANIMALS WHICH, TRULY COSMOPOLITE, IS INDISTINGUISHABLY COMMON TO ALL
PARTS OF THE GLOBE.
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