CREATION BY EVOLUTION
the “red-shafted flicker” (Colaptes cafer), with the shafts of its quills bright red. These two species show also certain other slight differences, scarcely noticeable. On the other hand, the golden warbler, which ranges through the whole of the United States, migrating widely north and south as the seasons change, is all of one species, because everywhere it can breed freely with the mass of its kind.
Contrariwise, each island in the West Indies has its own peculiar species of warblers (Mniotiltidæ), whose migrations are not general but range simply between the mountains and the shore of the island. On the same principle and for the same reason, each island in the South Seas has its own peculiar dialect, each plainly derived, however, from the same ancestral language.
Again, each side of the isthmus of Panama, closed since Miocene time—two or more millions of years ago—has its geminate pairs of fishes, some six hundred in all, clearly defined, the distinctions being in traits as useless to the fish itself as to man. The temperate zone has its own series of forest trees, many of which are recognizable as geminates. The plane-tree, the elm, the elder, and the alder belt the earth, but with progressively changing species. In fact, in all groups the geminate relation becomes the rule, and a species absolutely isolated and unvarying is the exception.
These facts are too well-known to students of the geographical distribution of plants and animals to require elaboration here. It is therefore true, as already affirmed, that no theory of the origin of species can be sound if it fails to take geography into account.
Science and Faith
The Universe is with us. It is our Universe and we are part of it and have no alternative save to accept it as it is and as reverently as may be. The positive side of religion
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