Sixteenth Annual meeting. 139 



mander occcura in Col. X. S. (ioss's contribution. Its locality is, not quite certainly, but 

 probably, Neosho Falls. 



Nec&wrus maculatus, Raf.: Water Puppy. — Several specimens from Neosho Falls, iu 

 the collection submitted by ( ol. ( ioss, are the first Kansas specimens that 1 have seen. 

 The species was previously reported to me in letter by Prof. F. K. Snow, who stated 

 that it bad been taken in Allen county, near Iola, by Mr. Bert Casmire, a student of the 

 State University. 



The minuter details of the relations of Kansas to the four great faunal regions — 

 Central, Eastern, Austroriparian, and Sonoran — that enter or approach its borders, are 

 yet to be ascertained. 



In problems of faunal relations, we can direct our attention to no department of 

 zoology more profitably than to that of herpetology, the intimate relations of reptiles 

 and batrachians to their climatic and topographical surroundings (partly dependent on 

 the fact that they do not migrate), rendering them exceptionally important factors in 

 all problems of faunal relations. 



This fact has constantly been kept in mind in my studies of the reptilian fauna of 

 Kansas, and the conclusions primarily derived from the study of that fauna have been 

 frequently reviewed in the light of observations made in the course of my studies upon 

 other groups of Kansas vertebrates and invertebrates, and further tested by the published 

 writings of the various naturalists who have studied portions of the Kansas fauna. 



While Kansas embraces features of each of the four faunal regions above mentioned, 

 no part of its territory is the exclusive property of one. Faunal regions are rarely 

 sharply defined. They cast their shadows beyond them, and beyond each shadow is 

 spread a penumbra. To a mingling of faunal shadow and penumbra from the regions 

 above mentioned this area owes the heterogeneous aspect of its fauna. 



In its flora, too, we see mingled with the dominant vegetation of the Central and 

 Eastern regions varying shades of the Austroriparian, and a few faint flecks of the Son- 

 oran. 



Of reptiles and batrachians, whose distribution corresponds nearly with a single one 

 of the four regions concerned, or with a part of such region, we find in Kansas of the 

 Austroriparian 14, Central 11, Eastern 10, and Sonoran 3. 



This observation might seem to point to the Austroriparian as the dominant factor, 

 but it by no means represents the true faunal relations of the State. It plainly asserts 

 that the fauna of Kansas is deeply shaded with Austroriparian. But when we consider 

 the ratio of each of the above numbers to the entire number of species peculiar to the 

 corresponding region, and take into account species common to two or more regions, we 

 see at once that the herpetological aspect of Kansas is mainly Central and Eastern. 



Two or three, only, of the many reptiles characteristic of the Sonoran region, to- 

 gether with a few which that region shares with the Central on one hand, or with the 

 Austroriparian on the other, extending into Kansas, show its distant Sonoran relation- 

 ship. 



The above observations pertain to the Kansas fauna as a whole, all Kansas species 

 being viewed as common to the entire State. But comparatively few species range over 

 the entire area of Kansas in upland and valley alike, and to gain an adequate concep- 

 tion of the Kansas fauna, even in its relations to natural fauna 1 , we must consider its 

 intralimital relations, and take into account other groups than those of reptiles and 

 batrachians. 



Full details of distribution have as yet been made out for but few species of Kansas 

 animals; but enough has been done to warrant the following conclusions as to the special 

 relations of the Kansas fauna: 



1. That Kansas cannot, as a whole, be included in any single faunal region of the 

 four that enter or approach its borders. 



