INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS DURING THE YEAR 1876. cxlix 



sential characters. The structure, affinities, and habits of a species 

 now form only part of its natural histor}^ We require, also, to know 

 its exact range at the present day and in prehistoric times, and to 

 have some knowledge of its geological age, the place of its earliest 

 appearance on the globe, and of the various extinct forms most near- 

 ly allied to it. To those who accept the theory of development as 

 worked out by Mr. Darwin, and the views as to the general perma- 

 nence and immense antiquity of the great continents and oceans so 

 ably developed by Sir Charles Lyell, it ceases to be a matter of sur- 

 prise that the troj)ics of Africa, Asia, and America should differ in 

 their productions ; but rather that they should have any thing in 

 common. Their similarity, not their diversity, is the fact that most 

 frequently puzzles us." 



The author has confined his investigations to the several classes 

 of vertebrates, a few prominent families of insects, and the branch 

 of mollusks. An analysis of his work, however, reveals that he 

 was chiefly influenced by the phenomena of the distribution of birds, 

 with which class he was evidently most familiar; with the other 

 classes he was apparently but imperfectly conversant. In one para- 

 graph (vol. i., p. 50) he discusses the question of" which class of ani- 

 mals is of most importance in determining zoological regions." He 

 arrives at the conclusion that in all essential points " the mammalia 

 are pre-eminent ; and they possess the additional advantage of being 

 the most highly developed class of organized beings, and that to 

 which we ourselves belong." Many naturalists, however, will be dis- 

 posed to dissent from him in this view; and, taking the author's 

 own standard of what best qualifies a group for the expression of laws 

 of geographical distribution, we are constrained to believe that the 

 inhabitants of fresh-water basins, and especially the fishes, are pre- 

 eminently the most truth-telling exponents of the relations of the 

 several regions of the globe to each other now and in the past. It 

 is evident, however, that, in spite of the expression of opinion of the 

 author, he has been influenced by the focts of geographical distribu- 

 tion of mammals much less than by those of birds ; and to this bias 

 is undoubtedly attriljutable the sequence and combinations of the 

 *' regions" which he has adopted. These regions are six in number, 

 and for them he adopts the names of his compatriot, Mr. Sclater. 

 The regions are divided by a procrustean system each into exactly 

 four sub-regions. They are as follows : 



I. The Palsearctic Region, with the sub-regions (1) North America, 

 (2) Mediterranean (or S. Eu.), (3) Siberia, and (4) Manchuria (or 

 Japan). 



II. The Ethiopian Region, with the sub-regions (1) East Africa, 

 (2) West Africa, (3) South Africa, and (4) Madagascar. 



III. The Oriental Region, comprising the sub-regions of (1) Hin- 

 dostan (or Central Ind.), (2) Ceylon, (3) Indo-China (or Himalayas), 

 and (4) Indo-Malaya. 



