rangement, if we may use that phrase, as that wh:ch has
always been observed in the dissemination of plants and of
the insect tribes. As ornithology has advanced; it has been
found more and more requisite to divide extensive families of
birds into different groupes, distinguished from each other by
some peculiarity of character, or by a leading deviation in the
nature and habits of species from the nature and habits of
other species belonging to the same family. It appears
more and more as knowledge becomes mote extensive and
particular, that groupes thus constituted have different geographical
relations. - Thus in the late work, still incomplete,
of the excellent naturalist M. Lesson, the vulture tribe, or as
they are more properly termed the Vultuffdei; are separated
into departments, and distinguished by particular names. Of
these the true Vultures and the Përcnopteri belong to the
old world ; the Sarcoramphi belong 4to'South America, as well
as the Catharti and the I.ribins, and the Gypaètes is proper
to Europe. New Holland is distinguished from the rest of
the world in having none of-the vulture tribe, which are there
replaced by the different races of Caracaras or Polybori.*
S e c t io n IV.—-Of the dispersion o f marine Animals,
The inhabitants of the-ocean are not so entirely limited by
those abrupt barriers which confine within particular regions
the natives of the land, o f islands separated .by seas, or of
continents divided by rivers and chains of lofty mountains*
I t seems likely, that many of the marine tribes should be
found to take a wide range, and to wander wherever the vast
regions of the ocean afford them an open path. The natural
history of these tribes is among the most imperfect departments
of zoology, and the undefined characters of particular
species has long favoured the error of those who have regarded
some of them as cosmopolites. Mistakes of this description
have been pointed out by M. Péron in-regard to the tribes of
Phocae. Under the name of Phoca Ursina, or sea-bear, more
than twenty species have been described, or merely indicated,
* Hist. Nat. des Oiseaux, p. 12.
by various authors, which are distinguishable from each
other, not only in colour, form, size, and the relative position
of their fins, but even in the number of their teeth and the
presence or want of external ears. Not less confusion has
prevailed respecting the Phoceæ Vitulinæ or sea-calves, an
imaginary species supposed to inhabit at the same time the
frozen oceans of either pole, and to bask under the equatorial
sun. % Even "the barriers which confine the-ocean, were thought
to have set no limits to the progress - of this tribe, -Which has
been said to have made .its way into the Caspian, and what is
still more strange, to have peopled with the native herds of the
sa lt sea* «the fresh water .lakes of Baikal’ Ladoga, and Onega.
Some writers have found no difficulty in supposing that seals,
which breathe at the surface of tbe sea, couldyet find a passage
through subterraneous Conduits from the Euxine to the
Caspian. Others have preferred té make them travel up
the great-rivers qf Asia, from the frozen océan elevated;-
lakes in the steppes of easterp Tartary; getting over rsoiner
part of the^fbttrney cn the land b y méàns Whâdh ja rê not ex^
plained. The facts which these conjectures are intended to?
make plain, rest on the authority of such writers asLangius
and Isbrandt, and itHis supposed with great probability by
Péron* . and by L e s s o n ,th a t the pretended seals of freshwater‘
Siberian lakes are otters.
Most-of the instances in which marine animals have been
supposed to have St> wide a range, appear £o have been reported
on the authority of-ill-informed persons, and so many
mistakes have been detected in these relations as prove them
to be unworthy of belief. Facts connected with the dispersion
of seals, as well as of the Cetacea, have been investigated
by M. M. Péron and lie Sueur, and more recently by M. .Lesson.
By Peron it has been proved, that Steller.and Fabricius have
described two different animals under the designation o f
Phoca Leonina, and that three great species of Phocaceae
inhabiting the Austral seas have been confounded with the:
• M. M. Péron et Le Sueur stir tes Habitations des Animaux Marins. Annale»
du Muséum, tom. xv.
f Lesson’s Hist, des mammifères, torn. 4. Les Phoques.