Here, too, we obtain a glimpse of the way in which {409} species die out and are replaced by others, which quite agrees with what the theory of evolution assures us must have occurred. On a continent, the process of extinction will generally take effect on the circumference of the area of distribution, because it is there that the species comes into contact with such adverse conditions or competing forms as prevent it from advancing further. A very slight change will evidently turn the scale and cause the species to contract its range, and this usually goes on till it is reduced to a very restricted area, and finally becomes extinct. It may conceivably happen (and almost certainly has sometimes happened) that the process of restriction of range by adverse conditions may act in one direction only, and over a limited district, so as ultimately to divide the specific area into two separated parts, in each of which a portion of the species will continue to maintain itself. We have seen that there is reason to believe that this has occurred in a very few cases both in North America and in Northern Asia. (_See_ pp. 65-68.) But the same thing has certainly occurred in a considerable number of cases, only it has resulted in the divided areas being occupied by _representative forms_ instead of by the very same species. The cause of this is very easy to understand. We have already shown that there is a large amount of local variation in a considerable number of species, and we may be sure that were it not for the constant intermingling and intercrossing of the individuals inhabiting adjacent localities this tendency to local variation in adaptation to slightly different conditions, would soon form distinct races. But as soon as the area is divided into two portions the intercrossing is stopped, and the usual result is that two closely allied races, classed as representative species, become formed. Such pairs of allied species on the two sides of a continent, or in two detached areas, are very numerous; and their existence is only explicable on the supposition that they are descendants of a parent form which once occupied an area comprising that of both of them,--that this area then became discontinuous,--and, lastly, that, as a consequence of the discontinuity, the two sections of the parent species became segregated into distinct races or new species. {410}