20 MevTumi — Geographic T)is(rihidio)i, of Life. 



Date Author How regarded Based on Rank 



1S8G Hartlaub As an independent region Birds 2 



(Antillean Eepion). 



1887 Heilprin As a subdivision of liis Neo- Animals .... 2 



tropical Region. 

 1887 Iveidienow . . . Aspartof his South American Birds 



Ivegion. 



1890 Merriani As a division of his Tropical Animals and 2 



Pi-ovince. plants. 



Northwest Codst Division. 



In 184:0 Hind.s, in mapping the })lant regions of the world, 

 proposed a ' Nortlnvest American Recjioa ' for the area west of the 

 Rocky Mountains, north of the Colunil>ia River, and south of lati- 

 tude ()8° north. Agassiz, in his paper on the Zoological regions of 

 the earth (1854), gave the name ^ North west Coast Fauna'' to 

 essentially the same area (shown on his map as extending along 

 the Pacific from northern California to the base of the Unalaskan 

 peninsula). 



In 1859 Le Conte, who based liis studies on Coleoptera, spoke 

 of this region as the ' Hyperborean Province ' of the Pacific dis- 

 trict ; and the same year Cooper, writing of forest regions, de- 

 scribed it as the ^Caurine Province.'' W. G. Binney, in 1878, 

 mentioned it as the ^Oreffonian Division'' of the Pacific Province; 

 Engler, in 1882, as the ^Kaloschen Zone ' ; Drude, in 1884, as the 

 ^Colamhian District''; Nelson, in 1887, as the ^ SitJcan District^- 

 Brendel, in 1887, as the ^North Pacific Province.'' 



Prairie Division. 



A few botanists, infiuenced It}^ the widely different aspects of 

 nature resulting from the presence or absence of forests, have 

 recognized a ' Prairie Region ' as one of the great ftoral divisions 

 of North America. It was first projDosed liy Pickering, in 1830. 

 Pickering named it the ' Louisianian Flora,'' and gave its bound- 

 aries as the Mississippi on the east and the Rocky INIountains on 

 the west. Hinds described it, in 1843, as "' a peculiar tract 

 enclosed by the vast forests of North America." He named it 

 the ' Prairie Region,' and said it extended " from within a hun- 

 dred miles of the west bank of the Mississippi to the Rocky 

 Mountains, stretching north to 54° north latitude, and again only 

 bounded on the south by the wooded country of the Texas and 

 the Mexican Sea." 



