to obtain milder conditions for the town, from the Bavarian General. At the second occupation of Orleans, things fell out less favourably for the city. The Bishop was guarded in his house and accused by General von der Tann of having contributed to the defeat of the Bavarians at Coulmiers by the information he had given to the French General, D'Aurelles de Paladine. For such things, men are shot in times of war, in times of peace they are judged differently.

It would be premature now, even if space permitted it, to give an account of the part the Bishop played in the Assemblée, as the zealous champion of the efforts made to restore the Monarchy. These events are too recent to be judged from an objective point of view. This much, however, can be clearly seen, that he allowed himself to be deceived by partial successes; too great attention to party calculations and questions of detail caused him to lose sight of the large lines of politics. Dupanloup lost the game twice, the first time when he appealed to the Comte de Chambord to accept the tricolor with the crown, and then again as one of those who formed the state of mind which led to the 16th of May. The King rejected all conditions, and the Marshal renounced every attempt at resistance. It remains to be seen whether in France it will be the Republic to which the future belongs, according to the aphorism of M. Thiers: L'avenir appartiendra au parti le plus sage.' It is only necessary to allude to Renan's Caliban, to remind our readers how very little of a reactionary a man may be to doubt it. The Débats was right when it said: 'Dans la patrie comme dans l'Église Dupanloup n'a jamais été de la majorité.' On his way to Rome, to his old friend, J. Pecci, who had become Pope Leo the Thirteenth, having been for some time indisposed, he was overtaken by death at Laincey in Loiret. There, on the 11th of October, 1878, fully resigned and in the act of prayer, after a short agony, he breathed his last in the arms of a friend. Throughout Christendom his death was felt to be a heavy loss. Leo the Thirteenth, with tears in his eyes, extolled the greatness and nobility of his heart. His enemies bowed before the purity of his priestly career. One voice alone was heard to utter, Il fut un de ces passants remarquables qui n'arrivent pas.' In his last will the Bishop had expressed a wish that no funeral oration should be pronounced upon his memory, but he was buried with regal pomp. No place on earth could be more suitable for him than the Cathedral of Sainte Croix, where the banner of the Maid of Orleans guards his rest.

With Dupanloup has passed away not only the greatest and most sympathetic member of the present French episcopate, but a whole school of thought. Count Falloux could recently convince himself of this, when his earnest and eloquent call of warning met no longer with any response.43 Disowned by Pius the Ninth, abandoned by its own followers, overtaken by the events of the time, that whole school

43 See Journal des Débats, October 23 and 30, 1878.

has ceased to exist; and if the present generation are reminded of it, it is only by the insolence of its enemies. But that which once had life can never be utterly destroyed, and truth remains for ever. The Liberal Catholics perished, not because they had chosen a lofty ideal, but because, under the pressure of circumstances, they also lowered their standard. It is as impossible for the Liberal Catholic party as it hitherto existed to come to life again, as it is for the present Ultramontane party to endure for ever; and the noble and amiable A. Cochin, who was one in mind with Dupanloup, was right in saying 'Parti Catholique, déplorable mot: Catholiques de tous les partis.' And yet the future belongs to the main doctrines of the Liberal Catholics; to their guiding principle of equal rights for all, and to their faith in the union of the Church with liberty. They themselves will not be forgotten, when the children shall have accomplished that which the fathers strove for. They can claim the -humble merit that even through their errors they have been of use; and looking back on them, future generations may remember the words of Joan of Arc: They had their share in the struggle, they shall also have their share in the triumph.'

6

C. DE WARMONT.

DWO

ANIMALS AND THEIR NATIVE

COUNTRIES.

IN the December number of this Review, Mr. P. L. Sclater called attention to the subject of the geographical distribution of animals in its bearing on the theory of evolution, and gave numerous special cases in which the actual distribution of particular species and groups is very difficult to explain on that theory without making assumptions which, in his opinion, the evidence at our disposal does not warrant. Difficulties of this nature are so numerous, and many of them seem to him so weighty, that, in order to explain them, he is led to question, what is almost an axiom with evolutionists, that identity of structure is, without exception, an indication of descent from a common parent. Similar doubts, though not stated in exactly the same terms, have been felt by Professor Mivart; and it therefore becomes a matter of interest to examine a little more closely into the alleged difficulties, in order to see whether they are not really explicable on the principle of descent with modification, only calling to our aid such general assumptions as are fully warranted by what we actually know of the migrations and extinctions of living things, and of the past changes in the physical condition of the earth and its inhabitants.

1

As Mr. Sclater's article gives an excellent summary of the nature and meaning of zoological distribution, and of the main general conclusions arrived at by naturalists, our purpose will be best attained by proceeding at once to consider his special cases of difficulty; and in doing so we shall have occasion to discuss, as fully as may be required, the general principles and particular illustrations needed to elucidate them.

We have first the case of the Little Blue Magpie of Spain, which has a very close ally in the extreme parts of Eastern Asia and Japan, while there is nothing closely allied to these in all the intervening regions or in any other part of the world. This is said to be an infringement of the canon as to the continuity of specific areas, and as such to require explanation. Before proceeding further, it will be well to inquire into the value of this canon of continuity,

1 Genesis of Species, chap. iii.

and whether it is so clear and well established that infringements of it are altogether exceptions to the usual course of nature. So far from this being the case, I believe it will be found that, between the complete continuity of the area occupied by a species or a genus and such wide discontinuity as occurs in the present example, there is every possible gradation; and further, that the instances of discontinuity are very numerous, while those of complete continuity are far less generally the rule than appears at first sight.

In order to understand the bearing of this class of phenomena on the theory of derivation, let me briefly indicate the probable course of a genus of animals from its birth or origin to its final extinction.

Genera are groups of species which agree among themselves, and differ from all other groups in the same family or order, by the possession of some structural peculiarities. We must therefore suppose a genus to have had its origin in some variation of structure which was useful to its possessors such as a modification of the bill, feet, or wings of a bird, or of the teeth, claws, or horns of a mammal. According to the theory of natural selection, the possessors of such a useful peculiarity would increase at the expense of their close allies who did not possess it, and would soon form a distinct group of individuals breeding together and constituting a species-the first species of the new genus. This species having in time supplanted the parent species, and being better adapted than it for the battle of life, would almost certainly cover a wider area, and thus come into competition with several of the allied species of the old genus, some of which it would also probably supplant, and occupy the areas they formerly occupied. But as they had been modified into distinct species (differing, perhaps, slightly in colour or habits in accordance with the varying physical conditions), so the now widespread species of the new genus would vary, and become modified in a somewhat analogous manner, forming a genus consisting of several species. Now, if the generic form thus produced was one of great inherent vigour and adaptability, and if the peculiarity of structure possessed was of considerable importance, it would become what Mr. Darwin terms a dominant group: that is, it would spread widely over the earth under various modified forms suited to the various conditions it became subject to. At last it would reach its maximum of development, and cease to spread further, either owing to its inability to adapt itself to further changes of climate, &c., or, what is more likely, from its coming into competition with other dominant groups which had in like manner spread from some other centres.

Now, during all this time, which may be termed the period of growth of the genus, its area will have been almost necessarily continuous, and the areas occupied by its several species (also continuous) will probably overlap each other. But now commences its period of decay. Other groups of the same or allied families have given rise:

to varieties which have also become dominant species and genera, which, under the somewhat changed physical conditions that in time have come about, beat it in the battle of life, and force it to retire step by step from the vast area it had overrun. First one species and then another will dwindle away and become finally extinct, and by so doing will necessarily leave gaps in its area of distribution. This process going steadily on, the time will at last come when two or three species only will remain, most likely in widely separated parts of its former area; their position being determined either by the competition being there somewhat less severe, or by some speciality of conditions which are exceptionally favourable to the dying-out group. Then one and then another of these species will die out, and the once extensive genus will only be represented by a single species inhabiting a very restricted locality. This will become rarer and rarer, the necessary preliminary to that final extinction which we know to be the fate, sooner or later, of every group of living things.

Most working naturalists (and none better than Mr. Sclater) are acquainted with genera whose distribution will illustrate all the successive phases of this hypothetical history; while palæontology furnishes us with some actual examples of the progress of a group from its rise to its decay, though, owing to the extreme imperfection of the geological record (and its total absence for important epochs in many parts of the globe), we can never trace the complete history of such a group. A little consideration will show us, however, why it is that continuity of generic and specific areas appears to be the rule, discontinuity the exception. There can be no doubt that the development of an extensive genus is a slow process, while its decay and final extinction need not be slow, and may conceivably be extremely rapid. Geological and geographical changes may be long in preparation, but finally very abrupt. Land may sink a thousand feet without producing any very important effect except diminution of area, but the next hundred feet of depression may cut it off from a continent, and may alter the direction of ocean currents, thus producing a greater organic and physical change than had been brought about by the previous subsidence occupying ten times as long. Again, such a change as that which admitted the highly organised Miocene mammalia of Europe into Tropical and South Africa must have led at once to the extermination of many of the indigenous species, and have restricted the area of many more. It is also important to remember that the dominant or growing species and genera, which are those having continuous areas, will be necessarily more prominent, more numerous in species and individuals, and therefore far better known; while those in process of extinction, and for that very reason having discontinuous areas, will be less numerous, far less common, and in fact often very rare, and therefore much less known. In many cases, too, it will happen that the discontinuity