Alfred Russel Wallace

“ Our climate is undoubtedly very distinct from that of any part of the continent, and in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales we possess extensive tracts of wild mountainous country where a moist uniform climate, an alpine or northern vegetation, and a considerable amount of isolation, offer all the conditions requisite for the preservation of some species which may have become extinct elsewhere, and for the slight modification of others since our last separation from the continent. ”

“ The spores of mosses and Hepaticæ are so minute that they must be continually carried through the air to great distances, and we can hardly doubt that, so far as its powers of diffusion are concerned, any species which fruits freely might soon spread itself over the whole world. That they do not do so must depend on peculiarities of habit and constitution, which fit the different species for restricted stations and special climatic conditions; and according as the adaptation is more general, or the degree of specialisation extreme, species will have wide or restricted ranges. ”

“ There is therefore a considerable amount of harmony in the various facts adduced in this chapter, as well as a complete accordance with what the laws of distribution in islands would lead us to expect. In proportion to the species of birds and fresh-water fishes, the number of insect-forms is enormously great, so that the numerous species or varieties here recorded as not yet known on the continent are not to be wondered at; while it would, I think, be almost an anomaly if, with peculiar birds and fishes there were not a fair proportion of peculiar insects. ”

“ At all events, with the amount of evidence we already possess of the very restricted ranges of many of our species, we must certainly hold them to be peculiar till they have been proved to be otherwise.
The great speciality of the Irish fishes is very interesting, because it is just what we should expect on the theory of evolution. In Ireland the two main causes of specific change—isolation and altered conditions—are each more powerful than in Britain. ”

“ The mosses and Hepaticæ also have been sufficiently collected in Europe to render it pretty certain that the more remarkable of the peculiar British forms are not found there; why therefore, it may be well asked, should there not be a proportionate number of peculiar British insects? It is true that numerous species have been first discovered in Britain, and, subsequently, on the continent; but we have many species which have been known for twenty, thirty, or forty years, some of which are not rare with us, and yet have never been found on the continent. ”

“ Why Britain is Poor in Species.—The former union of our islands with the continent, is not, however, the only recent change they have undergone. There have been partial submergences to the depth of from one hundred to perhaps three hundred feet over a large part of our country; while during the period of maximum glaciation the whole area north of the Thames was buried in snow and ice. Even the south of England must have suffered the rigour of an almost arctic climate, since Mr. Clement Reid has shown that floating ice brought granite blocks from the Channel Islands to the coast of Sussex. ”

“ Among birds we have undoubted peculiarities in at least three instances; peculiar fishes are much more numerous, and in this case the fact that the Irish species are almost all different from the British, and those of the Orkneys distinct from those of Scotland, renders it almost certain that the great majority of the fifteen peculiar British fishes are really peculiar and will never be found on the European Continent. ”

“ The Arctic, Alpine, and American plants may all be examples of species which once had a wider range, and which, owing to the more favourable conditions, have continued to exist in Ireland while becoming extinct in the adjacent parts of Britain and Western Europe.
As contrasted with the extreme scarcity of peculiar species among the flowering plants, it is the more interesting and unexpected to find a considerable number of peculiar mosses and Hepaticæ, some of which present us with phenomena of distribution of a very remarkable character. ”

“ We have, however, one undoubted case of a bird peculiar to the British Isles, in the red grouse (Lagopus scoticus) , which abounds in Scotland, Ireland, the north of England, and Wales, and is very distinct from any continental species, although closely allied to the willow grouse of Scandinavia. This latter species resembles it considerably in its summer plumage, but becomes pure white in winter; whereas our species retains its dark plumage throughout the year, becoming even darker in winter than in summer. ”

“ Just as we found to be the case in Oceanic Islands, where the means of transmission were ample hardly any modification of species occurred, while where these means were deficient and individuals once transported remained isolated during a long succession of ages, their forms and characters became so much changed as to bring about what we term distinct species or even distinct genera,—so these lake fishes have become modified because the means by which they are enabled to migrate so rarely occur. ”

“ This island is about three miles long and twelve from the coast of Devonshire, consisting mainly of granite with a little of the Devonian formation, and the presence here of peculiar insects can only be due to isolation with special conditions, and immunity from enemies or competing forms. When we consider the similar islands off the coast of Scotland and Ireland, with the Isle of Man and the Scilly Islands, none of which have been yet thoroughly explored for beetles, it is probable that many similar examples of peculiar isolated forms remain to be discovered. ”

“ The three American species which inhabit the extreme west and north-west of the British Isles, but are not found on the continent of Europe are especially interesting, because they demonstrate the existence of some peculiar conditions such as would help to explain the presence of the other peculiar species. ”

“ Yet it is a curious fact, that the phenomena of distribution actually presented by this group do not essentially differ from those presented by the higher flowering plants which have apparently far less diffusive power, as we shall find when we come to treat of the floras of oceanic islands; and we believe that the explanation of this is, that the life of species, and especially of genera, is often so prolonged as to extend over whole cycles of such terrestrial mutations as we have just referred to ”

“ Such islands are always still connected with their parent land by a shallow sea, usually indeed not exceeding a hundred fathoms deep; they always possess mammalia and reptiles either wholly or in large proportion identical with those of the mainland; while their entire flora and fauna is characterised either by the total absence or comparative scarcity of those endemic or peculiar species and genera which are so striking a feature of almost all oceanic islands. ”

“ If a fish thus wandered out of one river-basin into another, it might then retire up the streams to some of the lakes, where alone it might find conditions favourable to it. By a combination of the modes of migration here indicated it is not difficult to understand how so many species are now common to the lakes of Wales, Cumberland, and Scotland, while others less able to adapt themselves to different conditions have survived only in one or two lakes in a single district ”

“ The depth of the Irish Sea being somewhat greater than that of the German Ocean, the connecting land would there probably be of small extent and of less duration, thus offering an additional barrier to migration, whence has arisen the comparative zoological poverty of Ireland. This poverty attains its maximum in the reptiles, as shown by the following figures:—
Where the power of flight existed, and thus the period of migration was prolonged, the difference is less marked; so that Ireland has seven bats to twelve in Britain, and about 110 as against 130 land-birds. ”

“ To this cause we must impute our comparative poverty in mammalia and reptiles—more marked in the latter than the former, owing to their lower vital activity and smaller powers of dispersal. Germany, for example, possesses nearly ninety species of land mammalia, and even Scandinavia about sixty, while Britain has only forty, and Ireland only twenty-two. ”

“ Here then we have a group in which there is no question of the means of dispersal; and where the difficulties that present themselves are not how the species reached the remote localities in which they are now found, but rather why they have not established themselves in many other stations which, so far as we can judge, seem equally suitable to them. ”

“ A species or even a genus may on a continent have had a very limited area of distribution, and this area may be wholly or almost wholly contained in the separated portion or island, to which it will henceforth be peculiar. ”

“ The four non-European genera of mosses to which we refer all have their maximum of development in the Andes, while the three non-European Hepaticæ appear to have their maximum in the temperate regions of the southern hemisphere. Mr. Mitten has kindly furnished me with the following particulars of the distribution of these genera:—
Bartramidula. Asia, Africa, S. America and Australia, but not Europe or N. America. Streptopogon is a comparatively small genus, with seven species in the Andes, one in the Himalayas, and three in the south temperate zone, besides our English species. ”

“ Günther assures me, just as good and distinct species as any other recognised species of fish. It may indeed be objected that, until all the small lakes of Scandinavia are explored, and their fishes compared with ours, we cannot be sure that we have any peculiar species. ”

“ Such cases as this afford an excellent illustration of those changes of distribution, dependent probably on recent changes of climate, which may have led to the restriction of certain species to our islands. For should any change of climate lead to the extinction of the species in South Europe, where it is far less abundant than with us, we should have a common and wide-spread species entirely restricted to our islands. Other species feed in the larva state on our common gorse, a plant found only in limited portions of Western and Southern Europe ”

“ Dresser's work on the Birds of Europe they are considered to be distinct species, while Professor Newton, in his new edition of Yarrell's British Birds, does not consider the difference to be sufficiently great or sufficiently constant to warrant this, and therefore classes them as insular races of the continental species. ”

“ All the higher and more perfectly organised animals are, with but few exceptions, identical with those of France and Germany; while the few species still considered to be peculiar may be accounted for either by an original local distribution, by preservation here owing to favourable insular conditions, or by slight modifications having been caused by these conditions resulting in a local race, sub-species, or species. ”

“ We have also the curious fact of our outlying islands, such as the Shetland Isles, the Isle of Man, and the little Lundy Island, possessing each some peculiar forms which, certainly, do not exist on our principal island which has been so very thoroughly worked. ”

“ Assiminea grayana. Thames Estuary. Peculiarities of the British Flora.—Thinking it probable that there must also be some peculiar British plants, but not finding any enumeration of such in the British Floras of Babington, Hooker, or Bentham, I applied to the greatest living authority on the distribution of British plants—the late Mr. H. C. Watson, who very kindly gave me the information I required, and I cannot do better than quote his words: "It may be stated pretty confidently that there is no 'species' (generally accepted among botanists as a good species) peculiar to the British Isles. ”

“ Even should it ultimately prove that of the whole number of the fifty-five doubtful forms none are established as peculiar British varieties, the number admitted after so rigorous an examination is about what we should expect in comparison with the limited amount of speciality we have seen to exist in other groups. ”

“ Throughout countless ages they must have been in a constant state of comparatively rapid migration, driven to and fro by every physical and organic change, often subject to modification of structure or habit, but always seizing upon every available spot in which they could even temporarily maintain themselves. ”

“ Supporting this evidence, we have freshwater or littoral shells found at great depths off our coasts. Mr. Godwin Austen records the dredging up of a freshwater shell (Unio pictorum) off the mouth of the English Channel between the fifty fathom and 100 fathom lines, while in the same locality gravel banks with littoral shells now lie under sixty or seventy fathoms water. ”

“ The first class of evidence is the existence, all round our coasts, of the remains of submarine forests often extending far below the present low-water mark. Such are the submerged forests near Torquay in Devonshire, and near Falmouth in Cornwall, both containing stumps of trees in their natural position rooted in the soil, with deposits of peat, branches, and nuts, and often with remains of insects and other land animals. ”

“ The repeated changes of temperature and other climatic conditions, which, as we have seen, occurred through all the later geological epochs, combined with those slower changes caused by geographical mutations, must have greatly affected the distribution of such ubiquitous yet delicately organised plants as mosses. ”