380 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 



ninsulas of India and the isles of Sunda, is not less marked. 

 It is the country of the gibbons, the red ourang, the royal 

 tiger, the gavial, and a multitude of peculiar birds. Among 

 the fishes, the family of chetodons is most numerously repre- 

 sented. Here also are found those curious spiny fishes, whose 

 intricate gills suggested the name Labyrinthici, by which they 

 are known. Fishes with tufted gills are more numerous here 

 than in other seas. The insects and mollusks are no less 

 strongly characterized. Among others is the Nautilus, the only 

 living representative of the great family of large chambered- 

 shells, which prevailed so extensively over other types in for- 

 mer geological ages. 



622. The large island of Madagascar has its peculiar 

 fauna, characterized by its makis and its curious rodents. It 

 is also the habitat of the Aya-aya. Polynesia, exclusive of 

 New Holland, furnishes a number of very curious animals, 

 which are not found on the Asiatic continent. Such are the 

 herbivorous bats, and the Galeopithecus, or flying maki. The 

 Galapago islands, only a few hundred miles from the coast of 

 Peru, have a fauna exclusively their own, among which gigantic 

 land-tortoises are very characteristic. 



SECTION III. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



623. FROM the survey we have thus made of the distribution 

 of the Animal Kingdom, it follows : 



1st. Each grand division of the globe has animals which 

 are either wholly or for the most part peculiar to it. These 

 groups of animals constitute the faunas of different regions. 



2d. The diversity of faunas is not in proportion to the dis- 

 tance which separates them. Very similar faunas are found 

 at great distances apart ; as, for example, the fauna of Europe 

 and that of the United States, which yet are separated by a 

 wide ocean. Others, on the contrary, differ considerably, 

 though at comparatively short distances ; as the fauna of the 

 East Indies and the Sunda Islands, and that of New Holland ; 

 or the fauna of Labrador and that of New England. 



3d. There is a direct relation between the richness of a 

 fauna and the climate. The tropical faunas contain a much 

 larger number of more perfect animals than those of the tem- 

 perate and polar regions. 



4th. There is a no less striking relation between the fauna 



