Naur tic and Palwarctic Regions. 59 



upon which lie bestowed the name Xmrctic, in contradistinction 

 to the corresponding part of Eurasia, which he named PalssarctiCj 

 believing the two to be distinct primary regions. 



Wallace, the great champion of Sclater's Palsearctic and 

 Xearctic regions, says of the former in his most recent work on 

 geographic distribution : " Taking first the mammalia, we find 

 this region is distinguished by its possession of the entire family 

 of Talpidfp or Moles, consisting of 8 genera and 16 species, all of 

 which are confined to it except one which is found in Northwest 

 America, and two which extend to Assam and Formosa.' 1 (Island 

 Life, 1880, 41.) How he could have made such an erroneous 

 statement is hard to understand, in view of the well-known fact 

 that three genera of moles inhabit eastern North America and 

 two the Pacific coast region ; and it is the more strange since on 

 another page of the same work he states that there are three 

 peculiar genera of moles in North America.* 



He states further : ''Among carnivorous animals the lynxes 

 (9 species) and the badgers (2 species) are peculiar to it [the 

 Palsecretic region] in the old world, while in the new the lynxes 

 are found only in the colder regions of North America " (Island 

 Life, 1880, 41), thus implying that there are no badgers in North 

 America, and ignoring the presence of lynxes all along the south- 

 ern border of the United States from Florida and Texas to south- 

 ern California. Continuing, he mentions a number of groups 

 which, he says, " have only a few species elsewhere." Among 

 these are the " voles, dormice, and pikas." Pikas inhabit the 

 mountains of western Canada and range south in the Cascades 

 and High Sierra to southern California, and in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains to Colorado. They have been reported also from the high 

 mountains of Lower California in Mexico. The group of voles 

 or Arvicolmfpj exclusive of the lemmings, is represented in Boreal 

 North America by not less than 4 genera, 5 subgenera, and nearly 

 ">() species. It is only fair to add, however, that some of these 

 have been described since AV r allace's book was written 



u The Nearctic region is so similar to the Palsearctic in position 



* In his earlier work he says: "Condylura (1 species), the star-nosed 

 i uole, inhabits eastern North America from Nova Scotia to Pennsylvania ; 

 Xrp<iitn* ('2 species) ranges across from New York to San Francisco ; tfc-a- 

 ll>x ('.} species), the shrew moles, range from Mexico to the Great Lakes. 

 * * Urotrichu-s is a shrew-like mole which inhabits Japan, and a 

 second species has been discovered in the mountains of British Colum- 

 bia." (Geog. Dist. of Animals, II, 1876, 190.)' 



