Species Sentence Examples
Most of the known rhino species are West African.
Buffalo are a different species – like the water buffalo.
Some species show fermentative power.
In size the male African elephant often surpasses the Asiatic species, reaching nearly 12 ft.
Specialized species like Mastodon americanus have completely lost the rudimentary premolars.
The 2000s saw the rise of commercially viable seeds created by transgenesis, that is, the insertion of DNA from one species into another species.
Why has man just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this crevice?
Allied to the pine-grosbeak are a number of species of smaller size, but its equals in beauty of plumage.'
The African elephant is a very different animal from its Asiatic cousin, both as regards structure and habits; and were it not for the existence of intermediate extinct species, might well be regarded as the representative of a distinct genus.
Unlike the African species, the Indian elephant charges with its trunk curled up, and consequently in silence.
AdvertisementIn 1894 and 1895, Fischer, in a remarkable series of papers on the influence of molecular structure upon the action of the enzyme, showed that various species of yeast behave very differently towards solutions of sugars.
Three species of deer are common.
It is now filled with the smooth sumach (Rhus glabra), and one of the earliest species of goldenrod (Solidago stricta) grows there luxuriantly.
I thought I might just as well describe my pet in order to know it--order, vertebrate; division, quadruped; class, mammalia; genus, felinus; species, cat; individual, Tabby.
More than 2000 species of insects have been classified.
AdvertisementThroughout Britain, as a rule, this species is one of the most plentiful birds, and is found at all seasons of the year.
Amongst hardy species of Nymphaea now much grown are candida, nitida, odorata, pygmaea and tuberosa, all with white, more or less sweet-scented flowers; flava, yellow, and sphaerocarpa, rose-carmine.
In this connexion it is of interest to note that, both in the Mediterranean islands and in West Africa, dwarf elephants of the African type are accompanied by pigmy species of hippopotamus, although we have not yet evidence to show that in Africa the two animals occupy actually the same area.
North Borneo is especially rich in species.
There are about 600 species in the family, the males being usually larger than the females, and remarkable for the size of their mandibles.
AdvertisementThe true mushroom itself is to a great extent a dung-borne species, therefore mushroom-beds are always liable to an invasion from other dung-borne forms. The spores of all fungi are constantly floating about in the air, and when the spores of dung-infesting species alight on a mushroom-bed they find a nidus already prepared that exactly suits them; and if the spawn of the new-comer becomes more profuse than that of the mushroom the stranger takes up his position at the expense of the mushroom.
In the same species, however, great variation occurs in the development of the mandibles, and the breadth of the head varies correspondingly, the smallest type of male being but little different in appearance from the female.
The Scarabaeidae or chafers are an enormous famil y of about 15,000 species.
Many bird parasites belonging to the Rippoboscidae have naturally been carried about the world by their hosts, while other species, such as the house-fly, blow-fly and drone-fly, have in like manner been disseminated by human agency.
That is because the state is home to almost four dozen species of snakes.
AdvertisementThe better plan is to discard at once all fungi which have not been gathered from open pastures; by this act alone more than nine-tenths of worthless and poisonous species will be excluded.
Most of the species are esteemed good eating by the natives of the countries in which they live.
It may open either forward or backwards; and although present in the great majority of the species, and enclosing the teats, it may, as in many of the opossums, be completely absent, when the teats extend in two rows along the whole length of the under-surface of the body.
Some two dozen distinct species have been described as occurring in man.
The two living species are distinguishable at a glance.
Species of 51 more seem to occur as true natives within the Ethiopian and Indian regions, and besides these 18 appear to be common to the Ethiopian without being found in the Indian, and no fewer than 71 to the Indian without occurring in the Ethiopian.
The Nitidulidae are a large family with 1600 species, among which members of the genus Meligethes are often found in numbers feeding on blossoms, while others live under the bark of trees and prey on the grubs of boring beetles.
In the European species of Sitaris and Meloe these little larvae have the instinct of clinging to any hairy object.
Many instances of exaggerated and apparently unnatural structure nevertheless occur, as in the case of the genera Pangonia, Nemestrina, Achias, Diopsis and the family Celyphidae, .and, as might be expected, it is chiefly in tropical species that these peculiarities are found.
To a geographical distribution of the widest extent, Diptera add a range of habits of the most diversified nature; they are both animal and vegetable feeders, an enormous number of species acting, especially in the larval state, as scavengers in consuming putrescent or decomposing matter of both kinds.
The only indigenous land mammalia are a small rat and a few curious species of bats.
On the 21st day of the sale of Bullock's Museum in 1819, Lot 38 is entered in the Catalogue as "The Tail Feather of a magnificent undescribed Trogon," and probably belonged to this species.
The cock has a fine yellow bill and a head bearing a rounded crest of filamentous feathers; lanceolate scapulars overhang the wings, and from the rump spring the long flowing plumes which are so characteristic of the species, and were so highly prized by the natives before the Spanish conquest that no one was allowed to kill the bird when taken, but only to divest it of its feathers, which were to be worn by the chiefs alone.
While it is important to know how to identify snakes, with so many snake species it is equally important to have a good guide and learn the facts.
Restaurants located all over the island prepare many species of fish, crab, lobster, shrimp, and shellfish using a diversity of techniques.
It is hunted chiefly for the sake of the ivory of its immense tusks, of which it yields the principal source of supply to the European market, and the desire to obtain which is rapidly leading to the extermination of the species.
The species of the Of d World which, though commonly called "grosbeaks," certainly belong to the family Ploceidae, are treated under WEAVER-BIRD.
A good deal also depends on the species of tree.
The species most liable to be struck are oaks, poplars and pear trees; beech trees are exceptionally safe.
Of wild animals may be noted the moufflon (Ovis Ammon), the stag, and the wild boar, and among birds various species of the vulture and eagle in the mountains, and the pelican and flamingo (the latter coming in August in large flocks from Africa) in the lagoons.
Among birds of prey may be mentioned the eagle and various species of hawk, and among game-birds the partridge and pheasant.
Sixty species of parrots, some of them very handsome, are found in Australia.
This species and many others do not extend to Tasmania.
One species can utter a cry when pained or alarmed, and the tall-standing frilled lizard can lift its forelegs, and squat or hop like a kangaroo.
Five rather common species are certainly deadly - the death adder, the brown, the black, the superb and the tiger snakes.
Among the inoffensive species are counted the graceful green "tree snake," which pursues frogs, birds and lizards to the topmost branches of the forest; also several species of pythons, the commonest of which is known as the carpet snake.
Two species of mackerel, differing somewhat from the European species, are also caught on the coasts.
There are nearly 1000 known species, most of which live in tropical countries.
Russia, however, towards the Caspian, there is a notable admixture of Asiatic species.
A list, still incomplete, of the birds of St Petersburg runs to 251 species.
The various species of rapacious animals are disappearing, together with the colonies of marmots; the insectivores are also becoming scarce in consequence of the destruction of insects; while vermin, such as the suslik, or pouched marmot (Spermophilus), and the destructive insects which are a scourge to agriculture, become a real plague.
Unless the junglecat, which is a nearly whole-coloured species, can claim the position, the ancestry of these Manx-Malay cats is still unknown.
Fish are very numerous and many species are peculiar to the Andaman seas.
Many of the species are used for paper-making.
The seeds of West Indian plants are thrown on the western shores of the British Isles, and as they are capable of germination, the species are only prevented from establishing themselves by an uncongenial climate.
The number of described species can now hardly be less than 10o,000, but there is little agreement as to the main principles of a natural classification.
In America the breeding-range of this species has not been defined.
On the other hand, several Asiatic species (Siberian pine, larch, cedar) grow freely in the N.E., while numerous shrubs and herbaceous plants, originally from the Asiatic steppes, have found their way into the S.E.
In central Russia the species become still more numerous, and, though the local floras are not yet complete, they number 850 to 1050 species in the separate governments, and about 1600 in the best explored parts of the S.W.
A great many species unknown in the forest region make their appearance in the steppes.
Still, the reindeer frequents it for its lichens, and on the drier slopes of the moraine deposits there occur four species of lemming, hunted by the Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus).
In the ante-steppe the forest species proper, such as Pteromys volans and Tamias striatus, disappear, but common squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris), weasel and bear are still met with in the forests.
Homogenesis means simply that such organism comes into existence directly from a parent organism of the same race, and hence of the same species, sub-species, genus and so forth.
With the decline of totemism arose the need for human sacrifice - the only means of re-establishing the broken tie of kinship when the animal species was no longer akin to man.
As a rule the general facies as well as dimensions are remarkably uniform throughout a family, so that tropical species -often differ little in appearance from those inhabiting temperate regions.
This is the only species which can be cultivated in the open air in Britain.
Strutt (Sports and Pastimes) suggests that the first player's bowl may have been regarded by the second player as a species of jack; but in that case it is not clear what was the first player's target.
The armature consists of a bony case, partly composed of solid buckler-like plates, and partly of movable transverse bands, the latter differing in number with the species, and giving to the body a considerable degree of flexibility.
They are all inhabitants of the open plains or the forests of the tropical and temperate parts of South America, with the exception of a few species which range as far north as Texas.
All Siphonaptera, of which more than loo species are known, are parasitic on mammals or birds.
The human flea is considerably exceeded in size by certain other species found upon much smaller hosts; thus the European Hystrichopsylla talpae, a parasite of the mole, shrew and other small mammals, attains a length of 5z millimetres; another large species infests the Indian porcupine.
At least four species of fleas (including Pulex irritans) which infest the common rat are known to bite man, and are believed to be the active agents in the transmission of plague from rats to human beings.
The fox, of which several species exist, probably never ventured far into the plain, for it afforded him no shelter.
His conclusions were that the group "has never been nearer the mainland than it is now, nor have its members been at any time closer together"; and that the character of the flora and fauna is the result of species straggling over from America, at long intervals of time, to the different islets, where in their isolation they have gradually varied in different degrees and ways from their ancestors.
For the most part the species are carnivorous or insectivorous.
The whole story was an imaginary embroidery of the facts that barnacles attach themselves to submerged timber and that a species of goose is known as the bernicle goose.
In the former case (a) individual animals might be distinguished by certain marks, or (b) the whole species.
After excuses made to the animal or to the species in general, the victim was placed in position, and silence observed by all who were present.
Of the extremely limited Samoan fauna, consisting mainly of an indigenous rat, four species of snakes and a few birds, the most interesting member is the Didunculus strigirostris, a ground pigeon of iridescent greenish-black and bright chestnut plumage, which forms a link between the extinct dodo and the living African Treroninae.
The American hornbeam, blue or water beech, is Carpinus americana (also known as C. caroliniana); the common hophornbeam, a native of the south of Europe, is a member of a closely allied genus, Ostrya vulgaris, the allied American species, 0.
In North America there is a second distinct smaller species, called the coyote or prairie-wolf (Canis latrans), and perhaps the Japanese wolf (C. hodophylax) may be distinct, although, except for its smaller size and shorter legs, it is scarcely distinguishable from the common species.
It is singular that such closely allied species as the domestic dog and the Arctic fox are among the favourite prey of wolves, and, as is well known, children and even full-grown people are not infrequently the objects of their attack when pressed by hunger.
This name is twice translated "adder," but as nothing is told of it beyond its poisonous character and the intractability of its disposition, it is impossible accurately to determine the species.
All the species exude resin, but no turpentine.
Between 40,000 and 50,000 species of Diptera are at present known, but these are only a fraction of those actually in existence.
With the exception of a few species from the Solenhofen lithographic Oolite, fossil Diptera belong to the Tertiary Period, during which the members of this order attained a high degree of development.
Flies seem capable of adapting themselves to extremes of cold equally as well as to those of heat, and species belonging to the order are almost invariably included in the collections brought back by members of Arctic expeditions.
A good idea is to either take a guide into the field when trying to identify snakes, or to memorize the details of a few species that are of interest before setting out.
Brown or golden king crabs are the smallest in size of the three main species and are similar in taste to blue king crab.
Paved walkways allow for serene nature hikes through over a dozen different tree species.
The whole genus is parasitical, and contains about twenty species, widely distributed in the warmer parts of the old world; but only the mistletoe proper is a native of Europe.
In this species the fructification is conical or lanceolate, and is found in April on short, stout, unbranched stems which have large loose sheaths.
Horses appear to be fond of this species, and in Sweden it is stored for use as winter fodder.
This usage, coupled with the existence of a distinct term in Gaelic for the wild species, leaves little doubt that the word "cat" properly denotes only the domesticated species.
Since in all domesticated cats retaining the colouring of the wild species the soles of the hind-feet correspond in this particular with the Egyptian rather than with the European wild cat, the presumption is in favour of their descent from the former rather than from the latter.
Beyond stating that in colour it conforms very closely to the striped phase of domesticated tabby, it will be unnecessary to describe the species.
Remains of the wild cat occur in English caverns; while from those of Ireland (where the wild species has apparently been unknown during the historic period) have been obtained jaws and teeth which it has been suggested are referable to the Egyptian rather than to the European wild cat.
On the Patagonian steppes there are comparatively few species of animals.
On the arid plateaus of the north-west, the guanaco and vicuna are still to be found, though less frequently, together with a smaller species of viscacha (Lagidium cuvieri).
The greatest development of the Argentine fauna, however, is in the warm, wooded regions of the north and north-east, where many animals are of the same species as those in the neighbouring territories of Brazil.
Several species of monkeys inhabit the forests from the Parana, to the Bolivian frontier.
Pumas, jaguars and one or two species of wild cat are numerous, as also the Argentine wolf and two or three species of fox.
Of birds the number of species greatly exceeds that of the mammals, including the rhea of the pampas and condor of the Andes, and the tiny, brilliant-hued humming-birds of the tropical North.
Vultures and hawks are well represented, but perhaps the most numerous of all are the parrots, of which there are six or seven species.
The reptilians are represented in the Parana by the jacare (Alligator sclerops), and on land by the " iguana " (Teius teguexim, Podinema teguixin), and some species of lizard.
FruitFruit-growing is general all over France, which, apart from bananas and pine-apples, produces in the open air all the ordinary species of fruit which its inhabitants consume.
The name is derived from galapago, a tortoise, on account of the giant species, the characteristic feature of the fauna.
There also occurs a peculiar genus of lizards with two species, the one marine, the other terrestrial.
The majority of the birds are of endemic species peculiar to different islets, while more than half belong to peculiar genera.
Equally indecisive is the further exploration as to evidence for the opinion held by other naturalists that the endemic species of the different islands have resulted from subsidences, through volcanic action, which have reduced one large island mass into a number of islets, wherein the separated species became differentiated during their isolation.
No remains, and of course no living species, of these tortoises are known to exist or have existed on the mainland.
The head of a white goat obtained in 1900 from the mountains at the mouth of Copper river, opposite Kyak Island, has been described as a species apart.
The Didelphyidae are almost exclusively Central and South American, only one or two species ranging into North America.
The single species, which is a native of western and southern Australia, is about the size of an English squirrel, to which its long bushy tail gives it some resemblance; but it lives entirely on the ground, especially in sterile sandy districts, feeding on ants.
The one species, from Western Australia, is the largest member of the family, being about the size of a rabbit, to which it bears sufficient superficial resemblance to have acquired the name of "native rabbit" from the colonists.
The only species of this genus is about the size of a small rat, found in the interior of Australia.
One of the two living species was, indeed, described so long ago as the year 1863, under the preoccupied name of Hyracodon, but attracted little or no attention, as its affinities were not fully recognized.
Most of the species, particularly the specialized types, are more or less completely herbivorous.
These ancient opossums have been separated generically from Didelphys (in its widest sense) on account of certain differences in the relative sizes of the lower premolars, but as nearly the whole of the species have been formed .on lower jaws, of which some hundreds have been found, it is impossible to judge how far these differences are correlated with other dental or osteological characters.
Filhol, the fossils themselves represent two genera, Peratherium, containing the greater part of the species, about twenty in number, and Amphiperatherium, with three species only.
Besides these interesting European fossils, a certain number of didelphian bones have been found in the caves of Brazil, but these are either closely allied to or identical with the species now living in the same region.
Polyporus igniarius and other species are also used, but yield an inferior product.
The valleys afford rich pastures, and the plains produce every species of grain.
The marsupials constitute two-thirds of all the Australian species of mammals.
The opossum of America is the only species out of Australasia which is thus provided.
Australia is inhabited by at least if o different species of marsupials, which is about two-thirds of the known species; these have been arranged in five tribes, according to the food they eat, viz., the grass-eaters (kangaroos), the root-eaters (wombats), the insect-eaters (bandicoots), the flesh-eaters (native cats and rats), and the fruit-eaters (phalangers).
Of the larger kangaroos, which attain a weight of 200 lb and more, eight species are named, only one of which is found in Western Australia.
Fossil bones of extinct kangaroo species are met with; these kangaroos must have been of enormous size, twice or thrice that of any species now living.
There are some twenty smaller species in Australia and Tasmania, besides the rock wallabies and the hare kangaroos; these last are wonderfully swift, making clear jumps 8 or io ft.
Arboreal species include the well-known opossums (Phalanger); the extraordinary tree-kangaroo of the Queensland tropics; the flying squirrel, which expands a membrane between the legs and arms, and by its aid makes long sailing jumps from tree to tree; and the native bear (Phascolarctos), an animal with no affinities to the bear, and having a long soft fur and no tail.
There are four species of large fruit-eating bats, called flying foxes, twenty of insect-eating bats, above twenty of land-rats, and five of water-rats.
The birds of Australia in their number and variety of species may be deemed some compensation for its poverty of mammals; yet it will not stand comparison in this respect with regions of Africa and South America in the same latitudes.
The " mudfish " of Queensland (Ceratodus Forsteri) belongs to an ancient order of fishes - the Dipnoi, only a few species of which have survived from past geological periods.
The contour lines showing the heights above sea-level are the directions along which species spread to form zones.
Putting aside the exotic vegetation of the north and east coast-line, the Australian bush gains its peculiar character from the prevalence of the so-called gum-trees (Eucalyptus) and the acacias, of which last there are 300 species, but the eucalypts above all are everywhere.
As early as 1866, tannic acid, gallic acid, wood spirit, acetic acid, essential oil and eucalyptol were produced from various species of eucalyptus, and researches made by Australian chemists, notably by Messrs.
There are also several extremely valuable soft timbers, the principal being red cedar (Cedrela Toona), silky oak (Grevillea robusta), beech and a variety of teak, with several important species of pine.
The mallee is a species of eucalyptus growing 12 to 14 ft.
Two species of acacia are remarkable for the delicate and violet-like perfume of their wood - myall and yarran.
The majority of the species of Acacia are edible and serve as reserve fodder for sheep and cattle.
The range in species is very limited, no one being common to eastern and western Australia.
It is a species of cannel coal, somewhat similar to the Boghead mineral of Scotland, but yielding a much larger percentage of volatile hydro-carbon than the Scottish mineral.
No word exists in their language for such general terms as tree, bird or fish; yet they have invented a name for every species of vegetable and animal they know.
The Chinese immigrants suffer chiefly from fever of a malarial type, from beri-beri, a species of tropical dropsy, and from dysentery.
The Asiatic elephant; the seladang, a bison of a larger type than the Indian gaur; two varieties of rhinoceros; the honey bear (bruang), the tapir, the sambhur (rusa); the speckled deer (kijang), three varieties of mouse-deer (napoh, plandok and kanchil); the gibbon (ungka or wawa'), the siamang, another species of anthropoid ape, the brok or coco-nut monkey, so called because it is trained by the Malays to gather the nuts from the coco-nut trees, the lotong, kra, and at least twenty other kinds of monkey; the binturong (arctictis binturong), the lemur; the Asiatic tiger, the black panther, the leopard, the large wild cat (harimau akar), several varieties of jungle cat; the wild boar, the wild dog; the flying squirrel,.
Prominent among a great variety of song-birds and insectivorous birds are the robin, blue bird, cat bird, sparrows, meadow-lark, bobolink, thrushes, chickadee, wrens, brown thrasher, gold finch, cedar wax-wing, flycatchers, nuthatches, flicker (golden-winged woodpecker), downy and hairy woodpeckers, rose-breasted grosbeak, Baltimore oriole, barnswallow, chimney swift, purple martin, purple finch (linnet), vireos and several species of warblers.
Along the shore of Lake Champlain are a few species of maritime plants that remain from the time when portions of western Vermont were covered by the sea, and on the upper slopes of some of the higher mountains are a few Alpine species; these, however, are much less numerous on the Green Mountains of Vermont than on the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
Two more species of Hylactes are known, and 1 Of Spanish origin, it is intended as a reproof to the bird for the shameless way in which, by erecting its tail, it exposes its hinder parts.
The species of Scytalopus are as small as Wrens, mostly of a dark colour, and inhabit parts of Brazil and Colombia, one of them occurring so far northward as Bogota.
All the species are arborescent or shrubby, varying in size from the most stately of forest trees to the dwarfish bush.
The alternate leaves are more or less deeply sinuated or cut in many species, but in some of the deciduous and many of the evergreen kinds are nearly or quite entire on the margin.
The multitude of species and the many intermediate forms render their exact limitation difficult, but those presenting sufficiently marked characters to justify specific rank probably approach 300 in number.
The young trees require protection from storms and late frosts even more than in England; the red pine of the north-eastern states, Pinus resinosa, answers well as a nurse, but the pitch pine and other species may be employed.
Robur than any other species, forming a thick trunk with spreading base and, when growing in glades or other open places, huge spreading boughs, less twisted and gnarled than those of the English oak, and covered with a whitish bark that gives a marked character to the tree.
Chinquapin or prinoides, a dwarf species, often only I ft.
Ballota, a closely allied species abundant in Morocco, bears large edible acorns, which form an article of trade with Spain; an oil, resembling that of the olive, is obtained from them by expression.
C. sylvicultor, of West Africa, is the largest species, and approaches a donkey in size.
In some species (Ascaris decipiens) the giant cell is replaced by an irregular mass of protoplasm containing a number of small nuclei.
While some of the species are bisexual, others are protandrous, self-fertilizing hermaphrodites.
Though possessing a complete copulatory apparatus and producing large quantities of spermatozoa, they have lost their sexual instinct and play no part in the economy of the species.
These "psychically decadent" individuals appear to represent the entire male sex of a bisexual species, and become unnecessary owing to the grafting of hermaphroditism on the female sex.
In some cases (many species of Ascaris) the metamorphosis is reduced to a simple process of growth.
Although several species belonging to the second class occasionally enter the bodies of water snails and other animals before reaching their definitive host, they undergo no alteration of form in this intermediate host; the case is different, however, in Filaria medinensis and other forms, in which a free larval is followed by a parasitic existence in two distinct hosts, all the changes being accompanied by a metamorphosis.
This simple type of life-history has been experimentally proved by Leuckart to be characteristic of Trichocephalus affinis, Oxyuris ambigua and other species.
Ten years later Manson discovered a second species, Filaria perstans, whose larvae live in the blood.
Besides Anopheles, two species of Culex, C. penicillaris and C. pipiens, are also accused of transmitting the larvae.
As the city grew, the right to so many days a year atone or other shrine (or its " gate ") descended in certain families and became a species of property which could be pledged, rented or shared within the family, but not alienated.
Using these buoys to guide the direction of tow, a grapnel, a species of fivepronged anchor, attached to a strong compound rope formed of strands of steel and manila, is lowered to the bottom and dragged at a slow speed, as it were ploughing a furrow in the sea bottom, in a line at right angles to the cable route, until the behaviour of the dynamometer shows that the cable is hooked.
The plant generally understood by this name is Nepenthes, a genus containing nearly sixty species, natives of tropical Asia, north Australia and (one only) of Madagascar.
The size of the pitcher varies widely in the different species, from an inch to a foot or more in depth.
The cavity of the pitcher is in some species lined throughout with a smooth glistening surface over which glands are uniformly distributed; these glands secrete a liquid which is found in the pitcher even in the young state while it is still hermetically closed by the lid.
There are about seven species, herbs with clusters of radical leaves some or all of which are more or less trumpetor pitcher-shaped.
It may be mentioned that the Bactrian camel, which is a shorter-legged and more ponderous animal than the Arabian species, grows an enormously long and thick winter coat, which is shed in blanket-like masses in spring.
On the other hand, the Bactrian species, which is employed throughout a large tract of central Asia in the domesticated condition, appears, according to recent researches, to exist in the wild state in some of the central Asian deserts.
This comparison leads to the important conclusion that the wild Bactrian Camelus bactrianus ferus comes much nearer to the fossil species than it does to the domesticated breed, the resemblance being specially noticeable in the absolutely and relatively small size of the last molar.
In view of these differences from the domesticated breed, and the resemblance of the skull or lower jaw to that of the extinct European species, it becomes practically impossible to regard the wild camels as the offspring of animals that have escaped from captivity.
Partridges, woodcock, snipe, &c., are among the game-birds; but all kinds of small birds are also shot for food, and their number is thus kept down, while many members of the migratory species are caught by traps in the foothills on the south side of the Alps, especially near the Lake of Como, on their passage.
There are several varieties of snakes, of which three species (all vipers) are poisonous.
On the 17th of April 1898 a species of Employers Liability Act compelled employers of more than five workmen in certain industries to insure their employees against accidents.
There are many genera and species of leeches, the exact definitions of which are still in need of a more complete survey.
A species of Haemadipsa of Ceylon attaches itself to the passer-by and draws blood with so little irritation that the sufferer is said to be aware of its presence only by the trickling from the wounds produced.
In this instance it may happen that the work of intelligence has only been mimicked in nature by blind forces which have accidentally produced organic life; and Mill is disposed to hold that if the evolution of species should be clearly established as due to natural law - if there has been no creation by special interposition - the argument falls to the ground and theism (apparently) is lost.
There is a small pig (Sus andamanensis), important to the food of the people, and a wild cat (Paradoxurus tytleri); but the bats(sixteen species) and rats(thirteen species) constitute nearly three-fourths of the known mammals.
Rasorial birds, such as peafowl, junglefowl, pheasants and partridges, though well represented in the Arakan hills, are rare in the islands; while a third of the different species found are peculiar to the Andamans.
Fresh-water forms, however, are also known, very few as regards species or genera, but often extremely abundant as individuals.
The species of Hydra, however, are extremely common and familiar inhabitants of ponds and ditches.
In fresh-water Hydromedusae the life-cycle is usually secondarily simplified, but in marine forms the life-cycle may be extremely complicated, and a given species often passes in the course of its history through widely different forms adapted to different habitats and modes of life.
Hence both polyp and medusa present characters for classification, and a given species, genus or other taxonomic category may be defined by polyp-characters or medusa-characters or by both combined.
Balfour put forward the view that the polyp was the more primitive type, and that the medusa is a special modification of the polyp for reproductive purposes, the result of division of labour in a polypcolony, whereby special reproductive persons become detached and acquire organs of locomotion for spreading the species.
This must not be taken to mean, however, that the medusa is derived from a sessile polyp; it must be regarded as a direct modification of the more ancient free actinula form, without primitively any intervening polyp-stage, such as has been introduced secondarily into the development of the Leptolinae and represents 'a revival, so to speak, of an ancestral form or larval stage, which has taken on a special role in the economy of the species.
Many species are known, of which three are common in European waters.
Jickeli (28) that the species are distinguishable by the characters of their nematocysts.
The fact already noted that the species of Hydra can be distinguished by the characters of their nematocysts is a point of great interest.
In each species, two or three kinds of nematocysts occur, some large, some small, and for specific identification the nematocysts must be studied collectively in each species.
It is very remarkable that this method of characterizing and diagnozing species has never been extended to the marine hydroids.
Moreover, P. Hallez [22], has recently shown that hydroids hitherto regarded as distinct species are only forms of „ the same species grown under different conditions.
Those who were unwilling to accept evolution, without better grounds than such as are offered by Lamarck, and who therefore preferred to suspend their judgment on the question, found in the principle of selective breeding, pursued in all its applications with marvellous knowledge and skill by Darwin, a valid explanation of the occurrence of varieties and races; and they saw clearly that, if the explanation would apply to species, it would not only solve the problem of their evolution, but that it would account for the facts of teleology, as well as for those of morphology; and for the persistence of some forms of life unchanged through long epochs of time, while others undergo comparatively rapid metamorphosis.
How far "natural selection" suffices for the production of species remains to be seen.
In later years the attention of the best palaeontologists has been withdrawn from the hodman's work of making " new species " of fossils, to the scientific task of completing our knowledge of individual species, and tracing out the succession of the forms presented by any given type in time.
There has been a renewed activity in the study of existing forms from the point of view of obtaining evidence as to the nature and origin of species.
Comparative anatomists have been learning to refrain from basing the diagnosis of a species, or the description of the condition of an organ, on the evidence of a single specimen.
Naturalists who deal specially with museum collections have been compelled, it is true, for other reasons to attach an increasing importance to what is called the type specimen, but they find that this insistence on the individual, although invaluable from the point of view of recording species, is unsatisfactory from the point of view of scientific zoology; and propositions for the amelioration of this condition of affairs range from a refusal of Linnaean nomenclature in such cases, to the institution of a division between master species for such species as have been properly revised by the comparative morphologist, and provisional species for such species as have been provisionally registered by those working at collections.
Those who work with living forms of which it is possible to obtain a large number of specimens, and those who make revisions of the provisional species of palaeontologists, are slowly coming to some such conception as that a species is the abstract central point around which a group of variations oscillate, and that the peripheral oscillations of one species may even overlap those of an allied species.
The thirty years which followed the publication of the Origin of Species were characterized chiefly by anatomical and embryological work; since then there has been no diminution in anatomical and embryological enthusiasm, but many of the continually increasing body of investigators have turned again to bionomical work.
The commissioners of teinds became a species of ecclesiastical court.
There was, however, a species of appel comme d'abus.
In habits some of the species are nocturnal and others diurnal; but all subsist on a mixed diet, which includes birds, reptiles, eggs, insects and fruits.
The species of the genus Lemur are diurnal, and may be recognized by the length of the muzzle, and the large tufted ears.
The sportive lemurs (Lepidolemur) are smaller than the typical species of Lemur, and the adults generally lose their upper incisors.
Nevertheless, under some of these flows remains of plants and insects of species now living in the islands have been found - a proof that the formation as well as the denudation of the country is, geologically speaking, recent.
Many of the species attain a large size, and all are of very rapid growth.
There are about twenty species, but the number cannot be very accurately defined - several, usually regarded as distinct, being probably merely variable forms of the same type, and the ease with which the trees intercross has led to the appearance of many hybrids.
The cotton-wood timber, though soft and perishable, is of value in its prairie habitats, where it is frequently the only available wood either for carpentry or fuel; it has been planted to a considerable extent in some parts of Europe, but in England a form of this species known as P. monilifera is generally preferred from its larger and more rapid growth.
In America it seldom attains the large size it often acquires in England, and it is there of less rapid growth than the prevailing form of the western plains; the name of "cotton-wood" is locally given to other species.
The characters offered by the circular lip are among the most important for the distinction of species.
The tail varies much in length and shape according to the species; sometimes it is rounded at the end, sometimes more or less acutely pointed, or even terminating in a filament.
In some species of Rana and Staurois inhabiting mountainous districts in south-eastern Asia, the larvae are adapted for life in torrents, being provided with a circular adhesive disk on the ventral surface behind the mouth, by means of which they are able to anchor themselves to stones.
In other species, however, a peculiar type of polystely is met with, in which the original diarch stele gives rise to se-called dorsal and ventral stelar cords which at first lie on the surface of the primary stele, but eventually at a higher level separate from it and form distinct secondary steles resembling the primary one.
The first formed portion of the stern in all species of Selaginella which have been investigated possesses an exarch haplostele.
The bundles sometimes keep their arrangement s v in a ring corresponding with the stele, though the continuous cylin 0 der no longer exists (species of - Ranunculus).
In a good many cases, sometimes in isolated genera or species, sometimes characteristic of whole families, so-called anomalous cambial layers are formed in the stem, either as an extension of, or in addition to, the original cambial cylinder.
Since about 1880 our knowledge of the species which can enter into such relationships has been materially extended, and the fungal constituents of the Lichens are known to include Basidiomycetes as well as Ascomycetes.
Each species of green plant may form a mycorhiza with two or three different Fungi, and a single species of Fungus may enter into symbiosis with several green plants.
All the known species belong to the Oomycetes, the Pyrenomycetes, the Hymenomycetes or the Gasteromycetes.
They may occur on all parts, buds, leaves, stems or roots, as shown by the numerous species of Cynips on oak, Phylloxera on vines, &c. The local damage is small, - but the general injury to assimilation, absorption and other functions, may be important if the numbers increase.
Plants as agents of damage and disease may be divided into those larger forms which as weeds, epiphytes and so forth, do injury by dominating and shading more delicate species, or by gradually exhausting the soil, &c., and true parasites which actually live on and in the tissues of the plants.
Some very curious details are observable in these cases of malformation, For instance, the Aecidium eta/mum first referred to causes the new shoots to differ in direction, duration and arrangement, and even shape of foliage leaves from the normal; and the shoots of Euphorbia infected with the aecidia of Uromyces Pisi depart so much from the normal in appearance that the attacked plants have been taken for a different species.
The extraordinary forms, colors and textures of the true galls have always formed some of the most interesting of biological questions, for not only is there definite co-operation I between a given species of insect and of plant, as shown by the facts that the same insect may induce galls of different kinds on different plants or organs, while different insects induce different galls on the same plante.g.
This subject brings the domain of pathology, however, into touch with that of variation, and we are profoundly ignorant as to the complex of external conditions which would decide in any given case how far a variation in form would be prejudicial or otherwise to the continued existence of a species.
The former is concerned with the division of the earths surface into major districts characterized by particular plants or taxonomic groups of plants, with the subdivision of these floristic districts, and with the geographical distribution (both past and present) of the various taxonomic units, such as species, genera, and families.
On the other hand, ecological plant geography seeks to ascertain the distribution of plant communities, such as associations and formations, and enquires into the nature of the factors of the habitat which are related to the distribution of plantsplant forms, species, and communities.
In a general way, floristic plant geography is concerned with species, ecological plant geography with vegetation.
Geographical FactorsGeographical position determines the particular species of plants which grow in any particular locality.
This mattel- is bound up with the centres of origin and with the past migrations of species; and such questions are usually treated as a part of floristic plant geography.
A local aggrettion of a species other than the dominant one in an associion brings about a plant society; for example, societies of Ericd etralix, of Scirpus caespitosus, of Molinia coerulea, of Carex irta, of Narthecium ossifra gum, and others may occur within i association of Calluna vulgaris.
In central Scotland, forests occur of Pinus sylvestris; and, in south-eastern England, extensive plantations and self-sown woods occur of the same species.
Although many plants typical of fresh water are able to grow also in brackish water, there are only a few species which appear to be quite confined to the latter habitats in this country.
Very few aquatic plants are pollinated under water, but this is wellknown to occur in species of Zostera and of Naias.
Insectivorous species occur among aquatic plants; e.g.
In species of Eucalyptus, the leaves are placed edge-wise to the incident rays of light and heat.
It is possible, however, that the absence of sunken stomata, and the occurrence of some other halophytic features, are related merely to the succulent habit and not to halophytism, for succulent species often occur on non-saline soils.
The interesting occurrence of certain halophytes and hemi-halophytes on sea-shores and also on mountains is probably to be explained by the past distribution of the species in question.
In the west of Ireland and in the Faroes, where certain inland and lowland localities are still uncultivated, Plantage maritfma and other halophytes occur in quantity and side by side with some Alpine species, such as Dryas octopetala.
Calcicole and Calcifuge Species.Plants which invariably inhabit calcareous soils are sometimes termed calcicoles; calcifuge species are those which are found rarely or never on such soils.
In relation to the latter theory, it is pointed out that some markedly calcicole species occur on sand dunes; but this may be due to the lime which is frequently present in dune sand as well as to the physical dryness of the soil.
In England, the number of calcicole species is greater than the number of silicolous species.
It is interesting to note that in many species the formation of new cell-walls is initiated before any indication of nuclear division is to he seen.
Temperature, then, is the fundamental limit which nature opposes to the indefinite extension of any one species.
We owe to Buffon the recognition of the limitation of groups of species to regions separated from one another by natural barriers.
The genus Senecio, with some 1000 species, is practically cosmopolitan.
That wrought by man in destroying forests and cultivating the land will be no less effective, and already specimens in our herbaria alone represent species no longer to be found in a living state.
It is characterized by its needle-leaved Coniferae, its catkin-bearing (Amentaceae) and other trees, deciduous in winter, and its profusion of herbaceous species.
Individual species are extremely numerous and often very restricted in area.
There were oaks, beeches (scarcely distinguishable from existing species), birches, planes and willows (one closely related to the living Salix candida), laurels, represented by Sassafras and Cinnamomum, magnolias and tulip trees (Liriodendron), myrtles, Liquidambar, Diospyros and ivy.
Thus in the Mediterranean region the large groups of palms, figs, myrtles and laurels are each only represented by single surviving species.
Yet in 1886 Treub found that it was beginning to cover itself again with plants, including eleven species of ferns; but the nearest source of supply was 10 m.
Treub found on Krakatoa four species of composites and two grasses.
Watson showed that Scotland primarily, and to a less extent the north of England, possessed species which do not reach the south.
Even so small an area as that of Britain illustrates what has already been pointed out, that the species of a flora change both with latitude and altitude.
It possesses about 1000 species, or about two-thirds the number of Britain.
The British Phanerogamic flora, it may be remarked, does not contain a single endemic species, and 38% of the total number are common to the three northern continents.
Assuming that in its circumpolar origin the North Temperate flora was fairly homogeneous, it would meet in its centrifugal extension with a wide range of local conditions; these would favor the preservation of numerous species in some genera, their greater or less elimination in others.
Ball found the temperature one inch below the surface to be 83, and he collected over forty species in flower.
Taking the whole arctic flora at 762 species, Hooker found that 616 occurred in arctic Europe, and of these 586 are Scandinavian.
The arctic flora contains no genus that is peculiar to it, and only some fifty species that are so.
At the close of the glacial period the alpine floras retreated to the mountains accompanied by an arctic contingent, though doubtless many species of the latter, such as Salix polaris, failed to establish themselves.
Some species, such as Anemone alpine, which are wanting in the Arctic flora of the Old World, he thinks must have reached Europe by way of Greenland from north-east America.
Of species common to the two, Maximowicz finds that Manchuria possesses 40% and scarcely 9% that are endemic. Of a collection of about 500 species made in that country by Sir Henry James nearly a third are British.
Its arboreal vegetation is richer both in genera and species than that corresponding to it in the Old World.
Its extreme richness in number of species (it comprises six-sevenths of the European flora) and the extremely restricted areas of many of them point to a great antiquity.
Of the 1o00 known species of Astragalus it possesses 800.
Such are the date in Mesopotamia (a second species of Phoenix occurs in the Canaries); most European fruits, e.g.
Of four genera which Hooker singles out as the largest in Sikkim, in China Corydalis has 76 species, Saxifraga 58, Pedicularis 129, and Primula 77.
China has no Cistus or heath, only a single Ferula, while Astragalus is reduced to 35 species.
There are two species of Pistacia and four of Liquidambar.
China has 66 species of Quercus, 35 of Vitis, 2 of Aesculus, 42 of Acer, 33 Magnoliaceae (including two species of Liriodendron), 12 Anonaceae, 71 Ternstroemiaceae (including the tea-plant), and 4 of Clethra, which has a solitary western representative in Madeira.
No genus or species of palm, for example, is common to the Old and New Worlds.
The ancient broad-leaved Gymnosperm Gnetum has a few surviving species scattered through the tropics of both worlds, one reaching Polynesia.
A peculiar feature in which tropical Africa stands alone is that at least one-fifth and probably more of the species are common to both sides of the continent and presumably stretch right across it.
Probably in point of number of species the preponderant family is Orchideae, though, as Hemsley remarks, they do not give character to the scenery, or constitute the bulk of the vegetation.
As in the IndoMalayan sub-region, epiphytic orchids are probably most numerous in point of species, but the genera and even sub-tribes are far more restricted in their range than in the Old World; 4 sub-tribes with 74 genera of Vandeae are confined to South America, though varying in range of climate and altitude.
Amongst arboreous families Leguminosae and Euphorbiaceae are prominent; Hevea belonging to the latter is widely distributed in various species in the Amazon basin, and yields Para and other kinds of rubber.
Nearly related to myrtles are Melastomaceae which, poorly represented in the Old World, have attained here so prodigious a development in genera and species, that Ball looks upon it as the seat of origin of the family.
Instead of large continuous areas, in which local characteristics sometimes blend, it occupies widely dissevered territories in which specialization, intensified by long se1/2aration, hai mostly effaced the possibility of comparing species hnd even genera and compels us to seek for points of contact in groups of a higher order.
The South African sub-region has a flora richer perhaps in number of species than any other; and these are often extremely local ant restricted in area.
Hemsley remarks that the northerr genus Erica, which covers thousands of square miles in Europe with very few species, is represented by hundreds of species in I comparatively small area in South Africa.
Myrtaceae comes next with Eucalyptus, which forms three-fourths of the forests, and Melaleuca; both are absent from New Caledonia and New Zealand; a few species of the former extend to New Guinea and one of the latter to Malaya.
While the flora of New Caledonia is rich in species (3000), that of New Zealand is poor (1400).
Three-quarters of the native species are endemic; they seem, however, to be quite unable to resist the invasion of new-comers, and already 600 plants of foreign origin have succeeded in establishing themselves.
Taking, however, the Andean flora as typical, it contains a very marked endemic element; Ball finds that half the genera and four-fifths of the species are limited to it; on the other hand, that half the species of Gamopetalae belong to cosmopolitan genera such as Valeriana, Gentiana, Bartsia and Gnaphalium.
Baccharis, with some 250 species, ranges over the whole continent from the Straits of Magellan and, with seven species, to California.
Of Cupuliferae, Quercus in three species only reaches Colombia, but Fagus, with only a single one in North America, is represented by several from Chile southwards and thence extends to New Zealand and Tasmania.
The Magnoliaceous genus Drimys, with a single species in the new world, follows the same track.
Amongst Coniferae Podocarpus is common to this and preceding sub-regions; Libocedrus extends from California to New Zealand and New Caledonia; Fitzroya is found in Chile and Tasmania; and Araucaria in its most familiar species occurs in Chile.
On the whole, it consists of local species of some widely distributed northern genera, such as Carex, Poa, Ranunculus, &c., with alpine types of strictly south temperate genera, characteristic of the separate localities.
Darwin attributes this to the fact that the northern forms were the more powerful (Origin of Species, 5th ed., p.458).
Different species of organisms come to perfection in different climates; and it may be stated as a general rule that a species, whether of plant or animal, once established at one point, would spread over the whole zone of the climate congenial to it unless some barrier were interposed to its progress.
In this way the surface of the land is divided into numerous natural regions, the flora and fauna of each of which include some distinctive species not shared by the others.
From the point of view of the economy of the globe this classification by species is perhaps less important than that by mode of life and physiological character in accordance with environment.
Each of these divisions is the home of a special fauna, many species of which are confined to it alone; in the Australian region, indeed, practically the whole fauna is peculiar and distinctive, suggesting a prolonged period of complete biological isolation.
Coprolites have been found at Lyme Regis, enclosed by the ribs of ichthyosauri, and in the remains of several species of fish; also in the abdominal cavities of a species of fossil fish, Macropoma Mantelli, from the chalk of Lewes.
It is no exaggeration to say that the genus, often even the species, can be determined from almost any recent bone, but in the case of Miocene, and still more, of Eocene fossils, we have often to deal with strange families, which either represent an extinct side branch, or which connect several recent groups with each other.
But it also follows that, if every extinct and recent bird were known, neither species, nor genera, nor families, nor orders could be defined.
Some of the largest are those of Gastornis, with three species from France, Belgium and England.
For instance, from the lower Miocene beds of Allier and Puy-de-Dome MilneEdwards has described about so species.
A great number of birds' bones have been found in caves, and among them some bearing marks of human workmanship. In France we have a large and extinct crane, Grus primigenia, but more interesting are the numerous relics of two species, the concomitants even now of the reindeer, which were abundant in that country at the period when this beast flourished there,and have followed it in its northward retreat.
Winge has determined at least 126 species, of which nearly all still survive in the country.
Kitchen-middens of England, Ireland and Denmark reveal the existence of the capercally, Tetrao urogallus, and of the great auk or gare-fowl, Alca impennis; both species long since vanished from those countries.
New Zealand has also yielded many flightless birds, notably the numerous species and genera of Dinornithidae, some of which survived into the 19th century; Pseudapteryx allied to the Kiwi; Cnemiornis, a big, flightless goose; Aptornis and Notornis, flightless rails; and Harpagornis, a truly gigantic bird of prey with tremendous wings and talons.
The numbers of genera and species of birds are, of course, a matter of personal inclination.
The faunas of the two are as absolutely distinct as those of South America and Africa, and it is only because they are separated by a narrow strait instead of the broad Atlantic that they have become so slightly connected by the interchange of a few species and genera.
Then, of forms which are but weakly represented, we have the otherwise abundant thrushes (Turdidae), and, above all, the woodpeckers (Picidae), of which only very few species, out of 400, just cross the boundary and occur in Lombok, Celebes or the Moluccas, but are unknown elsewhere in the region."
All the existing Ratitae (with the exception of the ostriches of Africa and South America, belonging to the genera Struthio and Rhea, and comprising at most but five species) are found in Austrogaea and nowhere else.
Besides these, three or perhaps four groups, though widely distributed throughout the world, arrive in the Australian region at their culmination, presenting an abundance of most varied forms. These are the weaver-birds (Ploceidae), and the moreporks (Podargidae), but especially the kingfishers (Alcedinidae) and the pigeons (Columbidae), the species belonging to the two last obtaining in this region a degree of prominence and beauty which is elsewhere unequalled.
But the characteristic nature of the avifauna is more clearly brought out when we learn that of the 2000 species just mentioned only about 1070 belong to the higher suborder of Oscines, that means to say, nearly one-half belong to the lower suborder Clamatores.
First in point of importance comes the extraordinarily beautiful family of humming-birds (Trochilidae), with nearly 150 genera (of which only three occur in the Nearctic region) and more than 400 species.
To these follow the tanagers (Tanagridae), with upwards of forty genera (only one of which crosses the border), and about 300 species; the piculules (Dendrocolaptidae), with as many genera, and over 200 species; the ant-thrushes, (Formicariidae), with more than thirty genera, and nearly 200 species; together with other groups which, if not so large as those just named, are yet just as well defined, and possibly more significant, namely, the tapaculos (Pteroptochidae), the toucans (Rhamphastidae), the jacamars (Galbulidae), the motmots (Monotidae), the todies (Todidae), the trumpeters (Psophiidae), and the screamers (Palamedeidae); besides such isolated forms as the seriema (Cariama), and the sun-bittern (Eurypyga).
There is one peculiar subfamily, Todinae, represented by only four species of Todus.
If we take the number of Nearctic species at 700, which is perhaps an exaggeration, and that of the Palaearctic at 850, we find that, exclusive of stragglers, there are about 120 common to the two areas.
Like the Nearctic the Palaearctic subregion seems to possess but one single peculiar family of land birds, the Panuridae, represented by the beautiful species known to Englishmen as the bearded titmouse, Panurus biarmicus.
Lastly must be noted the extinct tall Ratite species of Aepyornis with its several fancy genera.
But there are also species, though not Passerine, which are absolutely identical with those of Britain, the barn owl, common quail, pigmy rail, and little grebe or dabchick, all of them common and apparently resident in the island.
Dinornis, numerous species, recently extinct, New Zealand.
C. autumnale and its numerous varieties as well as other species of the genus, are well known in cultivation, forming some of the most beautiful of autumn-flowering plants.
They are well known in cultivation, and owing to the wide distribution of the genus different methods are adopted with different species.
The species, about a dozen in number, are widely distributed over Australia, Tasmania, New Guinea and several of the adjacent islands.
Of an olive-green above, deeply tinted in some parts with black and in others lightened by yellow, and beneath of a yellowish-white again marked with black, the male of this species has at least a becoming if not a brilliant garb, and possesses a song that is not unmelodious, though the resemblance of some of its notes to the running-down of a piece of clockwork is more remarkable than pleasing.
A larger and more brightly coloured species, C. spinoides, inhabits the Himalayas, but the siskin has many other relatives belonging to the New World, and in them serious modifications of structure, especially in the form of the bill, occur.
The remaining species of the group, mostly SouthAmerican, do not seem here to need particular notice.