1 4 Merriam Geographic 1) istri 1) at ioi i of Life. 



Austroriparian or Louisianian Division. 

 (South Atlantic and Gulf States.) 



Latreille, as early as 1817, called attention to the difference in 

 the insect fauna of Carolina and Georgia from that of Pennsyl- 

 vania and New York, and in his division of the earth into cir- 

 cumpolar zones ran the boundary line between these faunas at 

 latitude 36. The difference in the flora of the South Atlantic 

 and Gulf States from that of the Northern States was recognized by 

 the Danish botanist Schouw as early as 1822 in the ' Realm of Mag- 

 nolias, or Pursh's Realm? which he then proposed for the region 

 between the parallels of 30 and 36 north latitude. Thirty- 

 four years later (in 1856) the northern boundary of the same 

 area was run by America's greatest botanist, Dr. Asa Gray, along 

 the parallel of 36 30', only half a degree from Schouw's line. 

 The first zoologist to recognize this region was the elder Binney, 

 who died in 1847. His posthumous work on Terrestrial Air- 

 Breathiny Mollusks ^ published in 1851, describes it under the name 

 1 Tertiary Region of the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico.' The 

 elder Agassiz recognized it in 1854 as one of his seven primary 

 regions, naming it the Louisianian Fauna. Later writers, except 

 Cope, have considered it a subdivision of the Eastern Forest 

 region. Cope restored it to primary rank in 1873 and named it 

 the Austroriparian Region. 



The extent to which this region has been recognized will ap- 

 pear from the following table : 



Date Author Name given to region Based on Rank 



1817 Latreille Supertropical Climate. . . Insects 1 



1822 Schouw Realm of Magnolias Plants 1 



1836 Meyen Subtropical Zone Plants 1 



1837 Martius Mississippi-Floridian Plants 1 



Realm. 



1838 Berghaus Realm of Magnolias .... Plants 1 



1851 Binney (A.) . . . Tertiary Region of At- Mollusks 2 



lantic and Gulf coasts. 



1853 Schmarda .... Middle American Realm. Animals 1 



1854 Agassiz Louisianian Fauna Animals ;> 



1856 Gray Southern States Plants I 



1859 Le Conte. .-. . . Southern Province Insects 2 



1859 Cooper Carolinian and Missis- Forests 2 



sippian. 



1863 Binney (W.G.) Southern Region Mollusks 2 



1866 Baird Southern Subdivision. . . Birds 2 



1866 Verrill Louisianian Fauna Birds 2 



1871 Allen Louisianian Fauna Birds 3 



