Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 2 | Page 4

careful consideration, come to adopt Dr. Sclater's division of the earth's surface into six great zoological regions, which he found equally applicable to birds, mammalia, reptiles, and other great divisions; while at the same time it helped to explain the apparent contradictions in the distribution of land animals. Some years later he wrote:
In whatever work I have done I have always aimed at systematic arrangement and uniformity of treatment throughout. But here the immense extent of the subject, the overwhelming mass of detail, and above all the excessive diversities in the amount of knowledge of the different classes of animals, rendered it quite impossible to treat all alike. My preliminary studies had already satisfied me that it was quite useless to attempt to found any conclusions on those groups which were comparatively little known, either as regards the proportion of species collected and described, or as regards their systematic classification. It was also clear that as the present distribution of animals is necessarily due to their past distribution, the greatest importance must be given to those groups whose fossil remains in the more recent strata are the most abundant and the best known. These considerations led me to limit my work in its detailed systematic groundwork, and study of the principles and law of distribution, to the mammalia and birds, and to apply the principles thus arrived at to an explanation of the distribution of other groups, such as reptiles, fresh-water fishes, land and fresh-water shells, and the best-known insect Orders.
There remained another fundamental point to consider. Geographical distribution in its practical applications and interest, both to students and to the general reader, consists of two distinct divisions, or rather, perhaps, may be looked at from two points of view. In the first of these we divide the earth into regions and sub-regions, study the causes which have led to the difference in their animal productions, give a general account of these, with the amount of resemblance to and difference from other regions; and we may also give lists of the families and genera inhabiting each, with indications as to which are peculiar and which are also found in adjacent regions. This aspect of the study I term zoological geography, and it is that which would be of most interest to the resident or travelling naturalist, as it would give him, in the most direct and compact form, an indication of the numbers and kinds of animals he might expect to meet with.[3]
The keynote of the general scheme of distribution, as set forth in these two volumes, may be expressed as an endeavour to compare the extinct and existing fauna of each country and to trace the course by which what is now peculiar to each region had come to assume its present character. The main result being that all the higher forms of life seem to have originally appeared in the northern hemisphere, which has sent out migration after migration to colonise the three southern continents; and although varying considerably from time to time in form and extent, each has kept essentially distinct, while at the same time receiving periodically wave after wave of fresh animal life from the northward.
This again was due to many physical causes such as peninsulas parting from continents as islands, islands joining and making new continents, continents breaking up or effecting junction with or being isolated from one another. Thus Australia received the germ of her present abundant fauna of pouched mammals when she was part of the Old-World continent, but separated from that too soon to receive the various placental mammals which have, except in her isolated area, superseded those older forms. So, also, South America, at one time unconnected with North America, developed her great sloths and armadilloes, and, on fusing with the latter, sent her megatheriums to the north, and received mastodons and large cats in exchange.
Some of the points, such for instance as the division of the sub-regions into which each greater division is separated, gave rise to considerable controversy. Wallace's final estimate of the work stands: "No one is more aware than myself of the defects of the work, a considerable portion of which are due to the fact that it was written a quarter of a century too soon--at a time when both zoological and pal?ontological discovery were advancing with great rapidity, while new and improved classifications of some of the great classes and orders were in constant progress. But though many of the details given in these volumes would now require alteration, there is no reason to believe that the great features of the work and general principles established by it will require any important modification."[4]
About this time he wrote the article on "Acclimatisation" for the "Encyclop?dia Britannica"; and another on "Distribution-Zoology" for the same work. As