only a fox, three rodents, and the guanaco, no one (as these all belong to S. American types, but not to the most characteristic forms) would doubt for one minute <as to> classifying this district with S. America; and if fossil Edentata, Marsupials and monkeys were to be found in Tierra del Fuego, it would not make this district more truly S. American than it now is. So it is with Europe{390}, and so far as is known with Asia, for the lately past and present mammifers all belong to the Africo-Asiatic division of the world. In every case, I may add, the forms which a country has is of more importance in geographical arrangement than what it has not. {389} See _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 339, vi. p. 485. {390} In the _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 339, vi. p. 485, which corresponds to this part of the present Essay, the author does not make a separate section for such cases as the occurrence of fossil Marsupials in Europe (_Origin_, Ed. i. p. 340, vi. p. 486) as he does in the present Essay; see the section on _Changes in geographical distribution_, p. 177. We find some evidence of the same general fact in a relation between the recent and the Tertiary sea-shells, in the different main divisions of the marine world. This general and most remarkable relation between the lately past and present mammiferous inhabitants of the three main divisions of the world is precisely the same kind of fact as the relation between the different species of the several sub-regions of any one of the main divisions. As we usually associate great physical changes with the total extinction of one series of beings, and its succession by another series, this identity of relation between the past and the present races of beings in the same quarters of the globe is more striking than the same relation between existing beings in different sub-regions: but in truth we have no reason for supposing that a change in the conditions has in any of these cases supervened, greater than that now existing between the temperate and tropical, or between the highlands and lowlands of the same main divisions, now tenanted by related beings. Finally, then, we clearly see that in each main division of the world the same relation holds good between its inhabitants in time as over space{391}. {391} "We can understand how it is that all the forms of life, ancient and recent, make together one grand system; for all are connected by generation." _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 344, vi. p. 491. _Changes in geographical distribution._