Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1877 — Distribution of Animals by Swimming. [ARTICLE]

Distribution of Animals by Swimming.

Very few mammals can swim over any. considerable extent at sea, although many can swim well for short distances. The jaguar traverses the widest streams in South America, and the bear and bison cross the Mississippi, and there can be no doubt that they could swim over equal widths of salt water, and, if accidentally carried out to sea, might sometimes succeed in reaching islands mary miles distant. Contrary to the common notion, pigs can swim remarkably well. Sir Charles Lyell tells us, in his “Principles of Geology,’’ that during the floods in Scotland in 1829 some pigs, only six months old, that were carried out to sea swam five miles and got on shore again. He also states, on the authority of the late Eilward Forbes, that a pig jumped overboard to escape from a terrier, in the Grecian Archipelago, and swam safekiio shore, many miles distant. These facts render it probable that wild pigs, from their greater strength and activity, might, under favorable circumstances, cross arms of the sea twenty or thirty miles wide; and there are facts in the distribution of this tribe of animals which seem to indicate that they have sometimes done so. Deer take boldly to the water, and can swim considerable distances; but we have no evidence to show how long they could live at sea or how many miles they could ti averse. Squirrels, rats and lemmings often migrate from northern countries m bands of thousands and hundred of thousands, and pass over rivers, lakes, and even arms of the sea, but they generally Eerish in tlie salt water. Admitting, owever, the powers of most mammals to swim considerable distances, we no reason to believe that any of them could traverse, without help, straits of upward of twenty miles in width, while, in most cases, a channel of half that distance would prove an effectual barrier. — H. Conant, in Harper's for March. The colored people of Georgia own 457,635 acres of land, and property in the aggregate valued at $5,488,867.