The wanderings of animals / by Hans Gadow.

  • Hans Friedrich Gadow
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The wanderings of animals / by Hans Gadow. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to the retention of the pouch in correlation with the arboreal life which the immediate ancestors of all the recent marsupials are known to have led. Arborealism may have been forced upon the primitive, indigenous fauna as a means of escaping competition against the coming higher placental mammals. Tropical forests teach two impressive lessons : the awe-inspiring competition into which plants and animals alike are forced in their struggle for life, and the fact that the fight is so fierce, because the physical conditions—plenty of warmth, water and food—are so favourable to all. Every living thing is modelled by adaptation to the prevailing surroundings, coupled with the cumulative inheritance of the characters acquired. Deserts. A characteristic essential feature of deserts is the scarcity of rain. An annual amount of rainfall of less than eight inches inclines a country towards desert conditions. Much depends upon the distribution of the rain, whether the few inches come down in the shape of half a dozen or more days of good rain, at various times of the year in little doses, or whether there is a drought of twelve months, or even longer, and the whole scanty allowance pours down in one dose, most of which is thus squandered since there is no time for it to soak in. Thfere are in fact various
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