Fauna

“ Naturalists know well enough how indeterminate the harmonies between a fauna and its environment are. An animal may better his chances of existence in either of many ways,—growing aquatic, arboreal, or subterranean ”

“ Hence it will be my aim to point out certain general tendencies, and certain general influences at work upon our fauna, the word fauna being a somewhat technical term used to designate the sum total of the animal life, great and small, in any circumscribed region. ”

“ Every vestige of wildness has long since been improved off the face of this region, and grasshoppers, mice, and field-sparrows constitute the fauna. That is, apparently so; and how readily we underrate the merits of the so-called commonplace in nature! The truth is, every inch of these unsuggestive fields has ever been and is familiar ground to hosts of cunning creatures, or how else could the pond that was formed in a few days have become tenanted as it now is? ”

“ They constitute the aye-enduring tissue on which the ever-changing patterns of creation are inscribed: the patterns are ever varying; the tissue which exhibits them for ever remains the same. In the animal kingdom, for instance, the prominent ideas have always been uniform. However much the faunas of the various geologic periods may have differed from each other, or from the fauna which now exists, in their general aspect and character, they were all, if I may so speak, equally underlaid by the great leading ideas which still constitute the master types of animal life. ”

“ The first, and perhaps the most startling fact brought out by our systematic review, is the very recent and almost universal change that has taken place in the character of the fauna, over all the areas we have been considering ”

“ One is that the plants and animals now existing mostly differ from the plants and animals which have existed. Though there are species common to our present Fauna and to past Faunas, yet the facies of our present Fauna differs, more or less, from the facies of each past Fauna. ”

“ Recognising that wild fauna and flora in their many beautiful and varied forms are an irreplaceable part of the natural systems of the earth which must be protected for this and the generations to come ”

“ There can be no doubt that the existing Fauna and Flora is but the last term of a long series of equally numerous contemporary species, which have succeeded one another, by the slow and gradual substitution of species for species, in the vast interval of time which has elapsed between the deposition of the earliest fossiliferous strata and the present day. ”

“ Fauna.—After the close of the Glacial period a twofold immigration of animals occurred,—from the south-west through Denmark, and from the north-east through Finland. Of the existing fauna, many species are widely spread. ”

“ Plants, too, are more numerous in species than the higher animals, and are almost always better known; their affinities have been more systematically studied; and it may be safely affirmed that no explanation of the origin of the fauna of a country can be sound, which does not also explain, or at least harmonise with, the distribution and relations of its flora. ”

“ While only a good beginning has been made in deciphering these records, enough has been done by the fascinating researches of Marsh, Cope, Osborn, Scott, and others to prove that in all parts of the earth one fauna has succeeded another in marvelous procession. ”

“ Geographical Faunas and Floras.—The group of animals and plants inhabiting any locality, whether peculiar to that locality or not, is called, in popular language,184 its fauna and flora. But, in a true scientific sense, a fauna and flora is a natural group of animals and plants in one place, differing more or less conspicuously from other groups in other places, and separated from them by physico-geographical boundaries, or by physical conditions of some kind. The members of such a group can only exist in certain harmonic relations with external conditions, and with one another. ”

“ Species and genera of the flora, fauna, and the highest animal, its crown—man—change and vary according to the environments and climatic variations, not only with every Round, but every Root-Race likewise, as well as after every geological cataclysm that puts an end to, or produces a turning-point in the latter. ”

“ Variation and natural selection would also afford a key to a multitude of geological facts otherwise wholly unaccounted for, as, for example, why there is generally an intimate connection between the living animals and plants of each great division of the globe and the extinct fauna and flora of the post-tertiary or tertiary formations of the same region; ”

“ In the lowest Tertiary beds of this country a rich mammalian fauna suddenly makes its appearance, and, from that time through the age of mammals to the present, America has been constantly occupied by this type of life in the greatest diversity of form. ”

“ But it is no longer possible to restrain curiosity from attempting to pry into the relations which connect the present state of the animal and vegetable worlds, as well as of the various races of mankind, with the state of the fauna and flora which immediately preceded. ”

“ While the insect fauna of European countries was investigated by local naturalists, the spread of geographical exploration brought ever-increasing stores of exotic material to the great museums, and specialization—either in the fauna of a small district or in the world-wide study of an order or a group of families—became constantly more marked in systematic work. ”

“ In that manner we may assume that our country has in the course of time obtained its present covering of plants. Each of the above-named elements in our flora has doubtless its corresponding element in our fauna. ”

“ It is only within the last hundred years that we have had anything approaching to an acquaintance with the living fauna of the earth; yet, during that time some seven or eight creatures we know have been extinguished. ”

“ It is a well-known principle of zoological evolution that an isolated region, if large and sufficiently varied in its topography, soil, climate, and vegetation, will give rise to a diversified fauna according to the law of adaptive radiation from primitive and central types. ”

“ Even the tiny things in the sea were strange to me. And in a world like this, of hot and endless day, we're likely to find jungles with great insects and huge reptiles—a fauna and flora corresponding to that of the Carboniferous Era on the surface. ”

“ THE present fauna of our planet includes many varieties of mammals and reptiles, and a few kinds of birds, that are found only on certain islands—a fact which seemed rather to justify the once universal belief in the origin of species by separate acts of creation. ”

“ Among the many subjects treated of are relations of past faunas; origination of faunas; areas of specific, generic, family, and ordinal distribution; conditions effecting distribution; migrations of animals; dispersions; zoölogical regions accompanied by a colored outline-map; distribution of marine life; nature of marine faunas, such as deep-sea, oceanic, pelagic, littoral; succession of life; faunas of different geological periods; appearance and disappearance of species, reappearance, extinction, and other subjects dealt with from geological evidence. ”

“ The evolutionist, therefore, is bound to grapple with the following problem whenever it is clearly put before him:—Here are the Faunae of the same area during successive epochs. Show good cause for believing either that these Faunae have been derived from one another by gradual modification, or that the Faunae have reached the area in question by migration from some area in which they have undergone their development. ”

“ We accordingly look upon the subterranean faunas as small ramifications which have penetrated into the earth from the geographically limited faunas of the adjacent tracts, and which, as they extended themselves into darkness, have been accommodated to surrounding circumstances. Animals not far remote from ordinary forms, prepare the transition from light to darkness. ”

“ By the radiation of the contemporaneous faunas, each from one centre, whence as the various parts of the world successively were formed and became habitable, they spread and became modified according to the local physical conditions. ”

“ Again, note as bearing upon the same point, the singular likeness which obtains between the successive Faunae and Florae, whose remains are preserved on the rocks: you never find any great and enormous difference between the immediately successive Faunae and Florae, unless you have reason to believe there has also been a great lapse of time or a great change of conditions. The animals, for instance, of the newest tertiary rocks, in any part of the world, are always, and without exception, found to be closely allied with those which now live in that part of the world. ”

“ We know, that in these forests, perhaps near enough to see us, though their forms are hidden by their likeness to their leafy surroundings and the dappled sunlight, are animals as various as elephants, tigers, leopards, foxes, squirrels, and bats; birds as various as hawks, parrots, and finches; and insects from butterflies, bees, and wasps to crickets, beetles, and ants. The forest, we know, in addition to all the wealth of tree and plant life, is teeming with animal and insect life, though of this we are able to see very little, so carefully do animals conceal themselves. ”

“ Animal life began first, like the plants, in the bosom of the ocean. From the slimy depths of the water life crawled hideous to the land. Great reptiles dragged their sluggish length through the tangled vegetation of the jungle of giant ferns. ”

“ Some walk upright, others crawl upon the ground; others burrow into the earth, and form their habitation under the surface; others fly aloft, and traverse the air in every direction; others swim in the waters. Throughout the whole of creation, every part is the habitation of some animal, or reptile, or insect. Even in the woods, among the leaves of the trees, in the fruits they bear, in the earth from whence they grow, nay, even among the stones, there are some living things. ”

“ Section II.—On Fowls. Number of Species — Superiority and peculiar Construction — Skill in building their Nests — Power and season of Propagation — Dexterity in providing Food — Instinct — Migrations — Insects — Religious Improvement.
Not any part of nature is destitute of inhabitants. The woods, the waters, the depths of the earth, have their respective tenants; while the transparent and elastic air, and those regions where man can never soar, but with much art and at considerable risk, are occupied with the most beautiful creatures. Every order of animals is fitted for its situation in life ”

“ Some of its beds consist of a range of certain species possessing a considerable similarity; while in others, animals of the most opposite habits, and inhabiting different regions of the globe, as well as different elements of nature, are strangely brought into contact, and confusedly blended in one heterogeneous mass. Shell-fish of the rivers and of the sea, corals, fishes of various kinds, insects, bones of different species of birds, remains of elephants, bears, and other quadrupeds, requiring for their existence different climates, are here united in an extraordinary assemblage. ”

“ More than that--and it is in this respect above all that the inexhaustible variety of nature shines forth--however imperfect each of these animals may be, each has received its own distinct features. It is to certain localities that they are fixed; it is there that they are found to be most numerous, largest in size and most beautiful; and to the extent that they are found most distant from the appropriate place, the individuals degenerate and the species becomes gradually extinguished. ”

“ The Creator has bountifully stored the earth and the ocean with animals and vegetables. Our attention is here circumscribed to the most exalted class, the Human Species; leaving to the naturalist a description of quadrupeds, birds, fishes, insects, and vegetables. By far the largest proportion of the human species are stationed to the north side of the equator, and even to the north of the tropick of cancer. ”

“ For now, mingling with the fish, we behold an altogether new type of creatures which, beginning life as water-breathers, learn to come out upon the land and live as air-breathers in the swamps of the coal forests. ”

“ Gradations of structure, with each stage beneficial to a changing species, will be favoured only under certain peculiar conditions. A strictly terrestrial animal, by occasionally hunting for food in shallow water, then in streams or lakes, might at last be converted into an animal so thoroughly aquatic as to brave the open ocean. ”

“ Parasites grew unchecked round the aged boles; wan grasses, uncoloured by the sun, sprang high and thick; while groves of saplings made the wood well-nigh impassable. Wild creatures dwelt in the undergrowth, undisturbed by sportsman or poacher, and overhead flocks of birds made the forest musical from sunrise to sunset. ”

“ One great advance in the study of zoology is emphasized by the object-lesson of the modern travelling naturalist. The general mise-en-scène of tropical forests and coral seas is now familiar to the ordinary tourist and the most cursory reader; while the pure and simple collector holds a subordinate place in the estimation of naturalists, for men now travel across the globe to study the life-history of one animal form. ”

“ All the great classes of animals, beasts of the field, fowls of the air, creeping things, and things which dwell in the waters, flourished upon the globe long ages before the chalk was deposited. Very few, however, if any, of these ancient forms of animal life were identical with those which now live. Certainly not one of the higher animals was of the same species as any of those now in existence. ”

“ The great majority of the insects and the birds, the apes, the squirrels, and, in general, all the arboreal animals, awake and put themselves in motion at the first glimpse of day, and animate the forest with their murmurs, their songs, their utterances, their lively sports and frolicsome gambols. ”