Page - 403 - in The Origin of Species

MEANS OF DISPERSAL 403 ated. With organic beings which never intercross, if such exist, each species must be descended from a succession of modified varieties, that have supplanted each other, but have never blended with other individuals or varieties of the same species; so that, at each successive stage of modification, all the individuals of the same form will be descended from a single parent. But in the great majority of cases, namely, with all organisms which habitually unite for each birth, or which occasionally intercross, the individuals of the same species inhabiting the same area will be kept nearly uniform by intercrossing; so that many individuals will go on simul- taneously changing, and the whole amount of modification at each stage will not be due to descent from a single parent. To illustrate what I mean: our English race-horses dififer from the horses of every other breed; but they do not owe their difference and superiority to descent from any single pair, but to continued care in the selecting and training of many individuals during each generation. Before discussing the three classes of facts, which I have selected as presenting the greatest amount of difficulty on the theory of "single centres of creation," I must say a few words on the means of dispersal. MEANS OF DISPERSAL Sir C. Lyell and other authors have ably treated this sub- ject. I can give here only the briefest abstract of the more important facts. Change of climate must have had a power- ful influence on migration. A region now impassable to cer- tain organisms from the nature of its climate, might have been a high road for migration, when the climate was dif- ferent. I shall, however, presently have to discuss this branch of the subject in some detail. Changes of level in the land must also have been highly influential: a narrow isthmus now separates two marine faunas; submerge it, or let it formerly have been submerged, and the two faunas will now blend together, or may formerly have blended. Where the sea now extends, land may at a former period have connected islands or possibly even continents together, and thus have allowed terrestrial productions to pass from