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Show 116 GEOGitAPIIICAL DISTRIBUTION AND [Ch. VII. abates When insects arc thus. crossing the sea, the the wind d .1! most delicate speci. es are not necessarily drowne ' 101' mf anhy n repose w.t thout sm. ln .n o0' on the unruffled surface o t de cdae ep The s1e nd ei., l ong- leOo'Oo 'ed tipul:l! have been seen stan - r f inO' o• n the sun.1a! ce o f tll e sea ' when driven out 1ar rom1 do u*r 0 coast and too<1 w·m g l·m m ediately on being appr·o ac 1e · • Exot'i c beetles are some t't mes thrown on our shore, whiCh reviv:e a f ter h av.m g been lonOo' drenched in salt-water;. and the pen- odi.C al appearance of some conspicuous butterflies amo. ngds t us, after b em. g unseen 1r1o r five or fifty years, has been ascribe , not without probability, to the agency of the winds. Inundations of rivers, observes Kirby, if they happen at any season excep t m. the depth of winter, always ca.r ry down. a numb er of m. sec .t s, floatinG0 ' on the surface of bits of stiC•k , wee d s, &c ., So that when the waters subside, the e. ntom.o log. ist may genera1 1 y I•e a p a plentiful harvest. In the dissemmatwhn , moreover, of these minute beings, as in that of plants, t e larO'er animals play their part. Insects are, in numberless ins~ances borne alonO' in the coats of animals, or the feathers of birds; a~d the eggs ~f some species are capable, like seeds, of resisting the digestive powers of the stomach,. and after th~y are swallowed with herbage, may be ejected agam unharmed m the dung. Geographical Dist·ribution and Diffusion of 1\fan. We have reserved for the last our observations on the ra~ge and diffusion of the human species over the earth, and them· fluence of man, in spreading other animals and plants, espe-cially the terrestrial Many naturalists have amused themselves i~ speculatin~ on the probable birth-place of mankind, the pomt from which, if we assume the whole human race to have descended from a sinO'le pair, the tide of emigration must originally have pr~- ceeod ed. It has been always a f avoun·t e conJ·e C t m·e , that this birth-place v/as situated within or near the tropics, where per- * I state this fact on the authority of my friend, Mr. Curtis. Ch. VII.] DIFFUSION OF MAN. 117 petual summer reigns, and where fruits, herbs, and roots, are plentifully supplied throughout the year. The climate of these regions, it has been said, is suited to a being born without any covering, and who had not yet acquired the arts of build-ing habitations or providing clothes. · '' The hunter state," it has been argued, " which l\1ontesquieu placed the first, was probably only the second stage to which mankind arrived, since so many arts must have been invented to catch a salmon or a deer, that society could no longer have been in its infancy when they came into use*." When regions where the spontaneous fruits of the earth abound became ove;peopled, men would naturally diffuse themselves over the neighbouring parts of the temperate zone; but a considerable time would probably elapse before this event took place ; and it is possible, as a writer before cited observes, that in the interval before the multiplication of their numbers and the1r increasing wants had compelled them to emigrate, some arts to take animals were invented, but far inferior to what we see practised at this day among savages. As their habitations gradually advanced into the temperate zone, the new difficulties they had to encounter would call forth by degrees the spirit of invention, and the probability of such inventions always rises with the number of people involved in the same necessity t. A distinguished modern writer, who coincides for the most part in the views of Aphonin above mentioned, has introduced one of the persons in his second dialogue as objecting to the theory of the human race having gradually advanced from a savage to a civilized state, on the ground that '' the first man must have inevitably been destroyed by the elements or devoured by savage beasts, so infinitely his superiors in physical force+·" He then contends against the difficulty here started • Rev. J. F. Brancl, ' commenting on Aphonin, Amum. Acad. vol. vii. p. 409. !~rand's Select Dissert. from the Amoou. Acad. vol. i. p. 118. t Idem., ib. :t Sir H. Davy, Consolations iu Travel, p. 74. |