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Struggle for Existence.

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he has penetrated to the extreme point of Asia in the peninsula of Malacca; he can even swim across an arm of the sea to destroy hundreds of human beings annually in the island of Singapore. This animal is represented in the New World only by the bloodthirsty but smaller and far less courageous ounce, which attacks man only when driven by necessity.

These contrasts have long been recognized and plainly expressed in the saying, that the New World is more favourable to vegetable life, and the Old to animal life. The tall forests of the temperate zones, as well as the so-called primeval forests of the tropics, preclude the development of a rich fauna, or admit only of one which is able to climb and live in tree tops. In the dense forests on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, a profound stillness prevails, according to Lord Milton's description, unbroken by the sound of any animal. On the other hand, in grass countries, and especially where, as in the prairies of North America, the forest still appears in isolated fragments, or scattered as in a park, we find great herds of bisons, and, in Africa, troops of antelopes and gazelles. The greater abundance of steppes in the Old World explains the fact that the animal kingdom of the eastern hemisphere exceeds the American fauna in number of species and of individuals, but not that the largest, the strongest, and the cleverest animals all occur in our portion of the globe. But this, again, is really caused by the greater extent, inasmuch as its consequence is a more animated struggle for existence. We ought to regard this struggle not so much as a necessary evil as a necessary blessing, for it is this which increases the strength of every creature, and forces enfeebled individuals or species to make room for the stronger, and which accurately represents in nature that which in political society is called open competition, which gives all the prizes to those foremost in the press, and mercilessly crushes those who lag behind. For our purpose we need only notice that in small secluded regions, for example, in islands, the struggle for existence is soon at an end, and the balance is undisturbed until some new competitor appears upon the scene of conflict. This may also be expressed by saying that the intensity of the struggle for existence increases proportionately with the size of the regions, so that it was far more energetic in the Old World than in the New, and that as a con

sequence of this continued pressure forwards, and of a more rapid adaptation of organisms to present circumstances, the largest, strongest, and cleverest creatures were necessarily to be found in the Old World. It is easy to conceive that in a larger space a pause in the struggle can rarely occur, and then only for a short time. Long before Darwin, Leopold von Buch 51 had observed: "The individuals of continental species spread and, with increasing distance and change of station, develop varieties, which, on account of the great dissimilarity which they have acquired, are no longer capable of being crossed with the other varieties, or of being brought back to the principal type; these ultimately become persistent, independent species, which, perhaps by other channels, come across other varieties equally changed, the two differing greatly and no longer capable of mixing. This is not the

case in islands."

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Hence, if on a larger extent of land the struggle for existence is more intense, because each variety follows rapidly on the heels of the other, this is the simplest explanation of the fact that the creatures of the Old World are in advance of those of the New, for not only is the square mileage of our continents twice as great, but weight must be given to the fact that America is divided into two quite distinct battle-grounds-into two continents with different natural kingdoms, each of which has its greatest length from north to south, instead of stretching like the countries of the Old World from west to east. The form of the New World seems as if designed to cover as many latitudes as possible, that of the Old World as if meant to extend over as many degrees of longitude as possible within the same latitudes. As most species and genera of both kingdoms are bounded by certain polar and equatorial limits (or more correctly by maximum and minimum isothermal boundaries), a far greater range is obviously open to each individual species in the Old World than in the New. How considerably the dimensions of the battle-ground is increased in the Old World by the fact that its main direction is from east to west, may be seen from the following comparison of proportions under the same latitudes.

51 Physikal Beschreibung der canarischen Inseln, vol. i. p. 133. 1825.

Effects of the Struggle for Existence.

IN NORTH AMERICA.

In 50° North Lat. Parallel of Vancouver's Island and Newfoundland

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If it is proved that in the larger regions the struggle for existence is carried on with greater intensity, it follows that the survivors on the wider scene of conflict must necessarily be superior to the survivors in the narrow region. For example, if plants of the Old World were to come unobserved into the New, or were they when already there to escape from the supervision of man, that is to say, from gardens into the open, they would supplant the American species with much more vigour than the American species under converse circumstances would supplant our vegetation on the eastern continents; in other words, European plants, either wild or escaped from cultivation, would spread in America far more rapidly than would American plants in Europe or in any part of the Old World. Experience actually confirms this theory, so that transatlantic botanists have themselves termed America the garden of European weeds. Appearing first at Buenos Ayres, wild European plants, such as lucerne, the ladies' thistle, and the teasel, have clothed the steppes for miles; the native grasses have been obliged to give way to our rye-grass species (Lolium perenne and L. multiflora) and to the Hordeum maximum and H. pratense. In North America, the small-flowered mullein and the common prunella have taken complete possession of some parts of the coast. European species and eight from other parts of the world have made their way into America since 1492, while only thirty-eight plants have made their way into Europe from all quarters of the globe.

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Every unprejudiced reader will, before this, have recognizedfor himself that the irresistible spread of the races of our hemisphere over the New World is exactly analogous to the victorious progress of our so-called weeds. The struggle for existence was very active at the time of the great migrations. It is true in

vasions by barbarian hordes into the territory of civilized nations are usually regarded as great calamities to mankind; but, perhaps, a little reflection will convince us that most, if not all of them, have proved beneficial. For the present, let us consider only the last but one of these great phenomena, namely, the incursion of the Mongols who, in an incredibly short time, poured down from their home on the Onun and Kerulen, in the Siberian Dauria, to the Danube, and whose appearance had a favourable influence upon Europe, although not equal in degree, yet of the same kind, as the sudden appearance of the Arabs. Where such struggles for existence arise, whatever may be their end, our race is eventually brought to a higher development; for either the older cultured nations succeed in forming a barrier against the advancing flood, and they become strengthened in the conflict, or if they succumb from weakness it must be because the supplanter was more vigorous than the supplanted. Even though a noble civilization was thus overthrown and its glories became buried in the soil, and the plough finally passed over its buried pavements, yet the victorious barbarian had one advantage over the conquered Roman, namely, his youth and the prospect of a more glorious future.

(a) The Hunting Tribes of the Northern Continent.-All the nations of America constitute a single branch of the Mongolian race, but for the sake of convenience, the inhabitants of the northern and southern continents are separated, and these are again distinguished into the so-called hunting tribes and the civilized nations. Language is the only means of forming a further and final subdivision. But we must be prepared to find a great number of languages, for hunting necessitates a system of small and widely scattered hordes, which, as has been already shown, is apt to break up the language into dialects which finally become completely dissimilar. Careful research is, however, able to trace the common derivation of the many languages. The languages of North America have been thus treated by Buschmann, on whose researches Waitz based his classification, which was afterwards embodied in the form of a map by Otto Delitsch. We need not therefore burden ourselves with an enumeration of uninteresting names, but it will be enough to specify the larger groups.

Hunting Tribes of the North.

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The immediate neighbours of the Eskimo and the other Behring's nations of the north-west coast, are the Kenai and Athabaskan groups, which, notwithstanding their great dissimilarity, still retain traces of a former affinity of language. The Kenai, of whom the Yellow Knife or Atna tribe 52 is best known, live chiefly on the Youcon river. The Athabaskans live further east, occupying the country between Hudson's Bay and the Rocky Mountains, about as far as the British boundary extends. Better known tribes are the Chippeways (different from the Objibeways), the Coppermine, Dogrib, and Beaver Indians. To this group belong also the Tlatskanai, Umkwa, and Hoopah, who have migrated far from their original homes in the north to the neighbourhood of the sea-coast of Oregon. The Athabaskan Navaho tribe have wandered even further to the south, eastward of the Colorado, to the highlands of New Mexico; and even the dreaded Apatshes, who range from the western Colorado to the Mexican provinces of Chihuahua and Coahuila, also belong to this group. Lastly, another Athabaskan tribe, the Lipani, live north of the mouth of the Rio Grande del Norte, so that this group is distributed over a district extending from the Arctic circle to the Gulf of Mexico.

Extending from the Rocky Mountains, near the sources of the Missouri, but especially in the northern States eastward of the Mississippi, dwell, or rather dwelt, at the time of the discovery, the Algonkins. The extreme west of the region over which they are distributed is occupied by the Blackfeet Indians; the shores of Lake Superior by the Objibeways, and the districts south and west of Hudson's Bay by the Knistinaux, or Crees. To the east of the Mississippi, and belonging to the Algonkins, were the Leni Lenappes, who constituted the "five nations" of the Delawares, which also included the Mohicans. To their language geography is indebted, among other names, for Massachusetts, Connecticut, Alleghany, Savannah, Mississippi. Other well-known Algonkin tribes are the Susquehannoc, Pampticos, Shawanos or Shawnees,

52 Properly Ah-tená. Tená, or tinneh, signifies "people," and all the tribal names have this suffix. Hence the Kenai would be better named the Tená tribes. W. Dale, Alaska and its Resources, p. 428. Boston, 1870,

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