CH. l] SCORPIONS OF AFRICA. 51 



greater extent than any other family all these three 

 archaic characters. And in correspondence with this we 

 find them ranging widely with many peculiar genera in 

 different parts of the world. The different regions differ 

 considerably in the richness of their scorpion fauna. 

 Naturally considering the tropical proclivities of the 

 family the Palsearctic region shows the fewest peculiar 

 generic types ; Mr Pocock only enumerates eight ; but 

 some of these range further into Africa than it is customary 

 to allow the Palsearctic region to extend, the northern 

 limit of which is placed considerably below the tropic of 

 Capricorn. Africa is very rich in scorpions ; unfortunately 

 those of Madagascar are but little known ; what is known 

 however tends to emphasise the peculiarities of this great 

 island ; two peculiar genera Grosphus and Tityobuthus, 

 belonging to the Buthidse, are there to be found. In the 

 Ethiopian region, apart from Madagascar, there exist no 

 less than nine peculiar genera exclusive of the two just 

 mentioned besides four that get into other regions. The 

 Oriental region is on the whole very distinct from the 

 Ethiopian though naturally they have some forms in 

 common. Six genera are confined to the region. Of the 

 five that are not, three are also partly Ethiopian ; two of 

 those are also Australian, viz. Isometrus and Archisome- 

 trus\ while Hormurus just gets across "Wallace's line." 

 In the Australian region there are altogether seven genera, 

 of which only three are peculiar and all of these three are 

 limited to what Mr Pocock calls the Australian sub-region, 

 i.e. the continent of Australia. The range of the scorpions 

 in fact rather supports what I have said concerning the 



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