The Geographical Distribution of Animals (2-Volume Set) With a Study of the Relations of Living and Extinct Faunas as Elucidating the Past Changes of the Earth's Surface

About this book

A reprint of a classical work in the Cambridge Library Collection.

Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was a British biologist whose theories of evolution, arrived at independently, caused Darwin to allow their famous joint paper to go forward to the Linnean Society in 1858. Considered the nineteenth century's leading expert on the geographical distribution of animals, Wallace carried out extensive fieldwork to document the habitats, breeding, migration and feeding behaviour of thousands of species around the world, and the influence of environmental conditions on their survival. First published in 1876, this two-volume set presents Wallace's findings, and represents a landmark in the study of zoology, evolutionary biology and palaeontology which remains relevant to scholars in these fields today.

Volume 1 focuses on the classification of species, migration processes, factors influencing extinction, and the characteristics of a range of zoological regions worldwide.

Volume 2 explores the distribution of primates, and the habitats and characteristics of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and insects.

Contents

VOLUME 1

Preface

Part I. The Principles and General Phenomena of Distribution
1. Introductory
2. The means of dispersal and the migration of animals
3. Distribution as affected by the conditions and changes of the earth's surface
4. On zoological regions
5. Classification as affecting the study of geographical distribution

Part II. On the Distribution of Extinct Animals
6. The extinct mammalia of the Old World
7. Extinct mammalia of the New World
8. Various extinct animals - and on the antiquity of the genera of insects and land-mollusca

Part III. Zoological Geography: A Review of the Chief Forms of Life in the Several Regions and Sub-Regions, with the Indications They Afford of Geographical Mutations
9. The order of succession of the region. Cosmopolitan groups of animals. Tables of distribution
10. The Palaearctic region
11. The Ethiopian region
12. The Oriental region
13. The Australian region

Index


VOLUME 2

Part III continued. Zoological Geography: A Review of the Chief Forms of Life in the Several Regions and Sub-Regions, with the Indications They Afford of Geographical Mutations
14. The neotropical region
15. The nearctic region
16. Summary of the past changes and general relations of the several regions

Part IV. Geographical Zoology: A Systematic Sketch of the Chief Families of Land Animals in their Geographical Relations: Introduction
17. The distribution of the families and genera of mammalia
18. The distribution of the families and genera of bird
19. The distribution of the families and genera of reptiles and amphibia
20. The distribution of the families of fishes, with the range of such genera as inhabit fresh water
21. The distribution of some of the more important families and genera of insects
22. An outline of the geographical distribution of mollusca
23. Summary of the distribution and lines of migration of the several classes of animals

Index

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