Freshwater Productions

In considering these several means of distribution, it should be remembered that when a pond or stream is first formed, for instance on a rising islet, it will be unoccupied; and a single seed or egg will have a good chance of succeeding. Although there will always be a struggle for life between the inhabitants of the same pond, however few in kind, yet as the number even in a well-stocked pond is small in comparison with the number of species inhabiting an equal area of land, the competition between them will probably be less severe than between terrestrial species; consequently an intruder from the waters of a foreign country would have a better chance of seizing on a new place, than in the case of terrestrial colonists. We should also remember that many freshwater productions are low in the scale of nature, and we have reason to believe that such beings become modified more slowly than the high; and this will give time for the migration of aquatic species. We should not forget the probability of many freshwater forms having formerly ranged continuously over immense areas, and then having become extinct at intermediate points. But the wide distribution of freshwater plants, and of the lower animals, whether retaining the same identical form, or in some degree modified, apparently depends in main part on the wide dispersal of their seeds and eggs by animals, more especially by freshwater birds, which have great powers of flight, and naturally travel from one piece of water to another.