“As the cold became more and more intense, we know that arctic forms
invaded the temperate regions; and from the facts just given, there
can hardly be a doubt that some of the more vigorous, dominant, and
widest-spreading temperate forms invaded the equatorial lowlands.
The inhabitants of these hot lowlands would at the same time have
migrated to the tropical and subtropical regions of the south; for the
southern hemisphere was at this period warmer. On the decline of the
glacial period, as both hemispheres gradually recovered their former
temperatures, the northern temperate forms living on the lowlands under
the equator would have been driven to their former homes or have been
destroyed, being replaced by the equatorial forms returning from the
south. Some, however, of the northern temperate forms would almost
certainly have ascended any adjoining high land, where, if sufficiently
lofty, they would have long survived like the arctic forms on the
mountains of Europe.”
“In the regular course of events the southern hemisphere would in
its turn be subjected to a severe glacial period, with the northern
hemisphere rendered warmer; and then the southern temperate forms
would invade the equatorial lowlands. The northern forms which had
before been left on the mountains would now descend and mingle with the
southern forms. These latter, when the warmth returned, would return
to their former homes, leaving some few species on the mountains, and
carrying southward with them some of the northern temperate forms which
had descended from their mountain fastnesses. Thus we should have some
few species identically the same in the northern and southern temperate
zones and on the mountains of the intermediate tropical regions” (p.
339, sixth edition).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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