86 CHAPTER VIII. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call, Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My head, too, hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss I feel-I feel it all. WORDSWORTH. MULTIFARIOUS as are the known vegetable productions of the earth, its animated inhabitants are greatly more numerous; almost every portion of the globe teeming with living creatures. Nor is the stream Of purest crystal, nor the lucid air, Though one transparent vacancy it seem, The geographical distribution of animals, like that of plants, appears to depend partly on temperature and climate, and partly on local causes. Animals, also, like plants, have their natural stations and habitations, though these are not always capable of being so rigorously determined as those of the latter. Some, however, are remarkably local. Thus, the mydaus meliceps, or badger-headed mydaus, an animal intermediate in character between the badger and polecat, and which is an inhabitant of Java, "is confined exclusively to those mountains in that island, which have an elevation of more than 7,000 feet above the level of the sea; and on these it occurs with the same regularity as many plants.” Noxious as are some species of animals to us, and insignificant as many of the inferior tribes may appear, they all act their appointed part in the economy of nature, fulfilling the offices assigned them by the Creator. Man is apt to regard good and evil so entirely as it has reference to himself, and is subservient to his own convenience, that he not un frequently overlooks the general amount of happiness which the beneficent Author of Nature appears to have had in view in the creation of animated beings. He too much considers the world as made for him, and for him alone; and accordingly too often regards all things that are not conducive to his pleasure or benefit, either as useless or noxious. “We complain," says Paley, "of what appears to us the exorbit ant number of some troublesome insects; not reflecting that large portions of nature would be left void without it. What we term blights, are oftentimes legions of animated beings, claiming their portion of the bounty of nature." In the animal, as well as in the vegetable kingdom, the largest proportion of species occurs in the warm regions of the globe, and a gradual decrease in the number both of genera and species, is observable as we recede from intertropical countries. This decrease is very striking in the radi ated animals, the greater number of which are inhabitants of the ocean. In cold latitudes, the cellaria, and sertullariæ, with a few sponges, alcyonia, and asteriæ, are alone to be met with. When we arrive at the forty-fourth or fortyfifth degree of north latitude, their number increases, and gorgoniæ, sponges with loose tissues, and millipores, appear in profusion. A little further, and the coral reddens the depths of the ocean with its brilliant branches; Sicily, in particular, having been long famed for its fisheries of the true red coral. This is soon followed by the large madrepores. It is not, however, until we approach the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude that the radiated animals become developed to any great degree in the northern hemisphere; and it is chiefly within the tropics, that these minute animals,, scarcely visible to the naked eye, perform the important offices allotted them in the field of nature; constructing those vast reefs, which either form additions to already existing land, or constitute new islands. The flustræ, however, do not appear to be restricted by climate, but abound in every sea, occurring in profusion on the sea-shores, being usually found attached to the fuci thrown up from the depths of the ocean; some of these flustræ appearing like spots of a chalky substance on the sea-weed, whilst others, of a light fawn-colour, and spreadinglike leaves, might almost be themselves mistaken for seaweed. The sertullariæ, which also abound on our shores, likewise present aborescent forms, and some species are very beautiful. Radiated animals are met with in considerable numbers in the Mediterranean Sea, and the sponge of commerce is principally obtained from the Greek islands. But perhaps few parts of the ocean afford the spectacle of a more striking assemblage of these animals, than the bed of the Red Sea; every part being covered both with sub-marine plants, and with various species of polyparia, the whole "presenting the appearance of a sub-marine garden of the most exquisite verdure, enamelled with animal forms.” There with a light and easy motion The fan-coral sweeps through the deep clear sea, Is sporting amid those bowers of stone. Animals belonging to the class Mollusca, are also more numerous in species, and more remarkable for their size and beauty, in the hottest regions of the globe, than in cold and temperate latitudes. And when instances occur of similar species inhabiting different zones, we find that the individuals met with in countries nearer the equator, are of larger dimensions than those which are natives of colder climates. Generally speaking, however, the species differ, even where the genera agree. Of this, the beautiful volute shells, which are dispersed over nearly all the temperate and warm regions of the globe, may form an instance. Thus, the voluta olla is found in Spain; the voluta cymbium in Africa; voluta tesselata, and other species, in India; voluta Braziliensis in South America; and voluta umbilicata in Australia. Twenty-four species of shells are, however, known to be common to the European and American coasts of the Atlantic. The sepia, or cuttle-fish, of our shores, are animals of singular, but not of formidable, aspect. In the Mediterranean Sea they attain a great size; and Mr. Swainson mentions having seen one, off the coast of Messina, whose arms were thicker than the wrist of an ordinary man; but the most enormous cuttle-fish are those inhabiting the Indian seas (fig. 171), where they are of sufficient size to attack the pearl-divers, whom they seize and entangle in their arm-like feet." Among the northern molluscs, one of the most worthy of notice, is the clio (fig. 172), remarkable for the enormous swarms in which it occurs, and from constituting the principal food of the whale. The trepang, biche de mer, or sea-slug, is another singular molluscous animal, which appears to be confined to the shores of the IndoChinese countries, the Indian Archipelago, and Australia. 66 The marine shell-fish, or testacea, of Northern Europe, are not distinguished for their variety or splendour; but the Mediterranean Sea, although many of its species are similar to those occurring in the British seas, affords others bearing a strong affinity to the species met with in the Red Sea, on the northern coasts of Africa, and even in the Indian Ocean. The conchology of the Indian seas is the most splendid, profuse, and varied, of any division of the globe. There we meet with the conus, oliva, voluta, harpa, cyprea, mitra, and many other of the most valued shells. The bivalves, also, though less numerous, include some very remarkable species, such as the malleus, or hammer-shaped oyster; and the tridacna gigas, the largest known bivalve, the shell sometimes, measuring four feet in length, and the whole animal being of the enormous weight of five hundred pounds. Africa also ranks among its shells some beautiful cones, volutes, olives, &c. The marine conchology of the West Indies and America, is very deficient in species, when compared with that of Asia in similar latitudes. America, however, perhaps exceeds the other divisions of the globe in |