The wanderings of animals / by Hans Gadow.

  • Hans Friedrich Gadow
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The wanderings of animals / by Hans Gadow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    require a great stretch of imagination. It is another thing to be told that such an essentially Asiatic beast as the camel had its origin in North America, where now there are none, whilst, to balance the account, the American bison is a rather recent immigrant from the Old World, where he lingers now in the Caucasus only. We may well feel bewildered by such ex¬ changes, and are forced to give up the cherished notion that the original home of a creature is that country where it is now most abundant. If this were always the case, zoological geography would be an easy matter. To trace the animals back to their original home, to follow their wanderings, suc¬ cesses and failures, the changes which they have undergone by adaptation to new and altered environ¬ ment, and to account for the composition of faunas of the various countries and' seas, is the fascinating study of animal distribution. This study has itself passed through various stages. The legend of Noah’s flood contains a con¬ siderable amount of shrewd sense. It is the first treatise on geographical distribution. Given the animals—and in spite of all the advances of modern science we have to abide by the same premises—the limited fauna of that part of the world started afresh on Mount Ararat, the only remaining land, or, as we put it now in scientific terms, the only continental remnant which was not affected by a world wide
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