Discourses: Biological & Geological: EssaysHuxley, Thomas Henry
Science
Discourses: Biological & Geological: Essays
Huxley, Thomas Henry
Biology; Geology
Now the truth which Mr. Darwin perceived and promulgated as "the law of
the succession of types" is, that, in all these provinces, the animals
found in Pliocene or later deposits are closely affined to those which
now inhabit the same provinces; and that, conversely, the forms
characteristic of other provinces are absent. North and South America,
perhaps, present one or two exceptions to the last rule, but they are
readily susceptible of explanation. Thus, in Australia, the later
Tertiary mammals are marsupials (possibly with the exception of the Dog
and a Rodent or two, as at present). In Austro-Columbia, the later
Tertiary fauna exhibits numerous and varied forms of Platyrrhine Apes,
Rodents, Cats, Dogs, Stags, _Edentata_, and Opossums; but, as at present,
no Catarrhine Apes, no Lemurs, no _Insectivora_, Oxen, Antelopes,
Rhinoceroses, nor _Didelphia_ other than Opossums. And in the widespread
Arctogaeal province, the Pliocene and later mammals belong to the same
groups as those which now exist in the province. The law of succession of
types, therefore, holds good for the present epoch as compared with its
predecessor. Does it equally well apply to the Pliocene fauna when we
compare it with that of the Miocene epoch? By great good fortune, an
extensive mammalian fauna of the latter epoch has now become known, in
four very distant portions of the Arctogaeal province which do not differ
greatly in latitude. Thus Falconer and Cautley have made known the fauna
of the sub-Himalayas and the Perim Islands; Gaudry that of Attica; many
observers that of Central Europe and France; and Leidy that of Nebraska,
on the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains. The results are very
striking. The total Miocene fauna comprises many genera and species of
Catarrhine Apes, of Bats, of _Insectivora_; of Arctogaeal types of
_Rodentia_; of _Proboscidea_; of equine, rhinocerotic, and tapirine
quadrupeds; of cameline, bovine, antilopine, cervine, and traguline
Ruminants; of Pigs and Hippopotamuses; of _Viverridoe_ and _Hyoenidoe_
among other _Carnivora_; with _Edentata_ allied to the Aretogaeal
_Oryeteropus_ and _Manis_, and not to the Austro-Columbian Edentates. The
only type present in the Miocene, but absent in the existing, fauna of
Eastern Arctogaea, is that of the _Didelphidoe_, which, however, remains
in North America.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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