Page "On the Origin of Species" Paragraph 70

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I think all the grand leading facts of geographical distribution are explicable on the theory of migration ( generally of the more dominant forms of life ), together with subsequent modification and the multiplication of new forms.

We can thus understand the high importance of barriers, whether of land or water, which separate our several zoological and botanical provinces.

We can thus understand the localisation of sub-genera, genera, and families ; and how it is that under different latitudes, for instance in South America, the inhabitants of the plains and mountains, of the forests, marshes, and deserts, are in so mysterious a manner linked together by affinity, and are likewise linked to the extinct beings which formerly inhabited the same continent ... On these same principles, we can understand, as I have endeavoured to show, why oceanic islands should have few inhabitants, but of these a great number should be endemic or peculiar ; ...