1913 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 27 



met elsewhere than in Ottawa, and we greatly appreciate the kindness of our Ottawa 

 friends, who have spared no efforts to make our visit a pleasant and interesting one. 



It is good for us, and for the welfare of our Society, to change our place of 

 meeting from time to time. It will give to many who would otherwise find it 

 difficult to attend our meetings, the opportunity of doing so, and to our Society 

 itself and the aims and objects of its work, it will help to give more of that public 

 recognition which they undoubtedly deserve. 



It has usually 'been the custom on these occasions for the President to review 

 the work of the year, or to discuss the recent progress of our science; but I find that 

 this rule has not been strictly observed, and I feel, therefore, that I am not violating 

 a time-worn custom in departing from this practice and speaking to you for a little 

 while upon a subject which has as yet received but little attention in Canada, but 

 which should, I think, be of some interest to all entomologists. 



The Faunal Zones of Canada. 



I refer to the geographical distribution of insects in our country, or rather to 

 that of the Canadian fauna in general, for the greater part of Canada is still almost 

 a terra incognita from an entomological standpoint, and it is therefore a necessity 

 to refer also to other groups whose distribution is better known than that of the 

 insects, in order to form a definite idea of the faunal areas into which our country 

 is divided. 



We have all seen the map of the Faunal Zones of North America, which was 

 published in the May number of our magazine, and no doubt all who have seen it 

 realize in a general way that the differently coloured areas represent zoological zones, 

 and that the fauna of each zone has certain particular characteristics. But, as far as 

 I am aware, no explanation of these characteristics has appeared in any entomologi- 

 cal publication, so that it may not be without interest to consider the map for a 

 little while, particularly as this map is to be used in connection with the catalogue 

 of Canadian insects, the distribution of each species being referred to under the 

 names of the various zones inhabited by it. 



Some facts of zoogeography are familiar to all. Everyone knows that countries 

 of widely different climatic conditions differ more or less widely in their plant and 

 animal inhabitants, and that, generally speaking, localities remote from one another 

 also exhibit marked points of distinction in their flora and fauna. A very little 

 observation, however, will show that many other factors besides those of climate and 

 distance are concerned in the distribution of life. Thus, zoologically, there is more 

 difference between Australia and New Zealand than there is between England and 

 Japan, and more between the Pacific slope in British Columbia and the foothills of 

 the Eockies than between Labrador and the Mackenzie Eiver country. Barriers of 

 any kind, such as seas, mountain chains, deserts, etc., if sufficient to prevent free 

 communication between the faunas of adjacent districts, are invariably associated 

 with more or less marked differences in the faunas thus separated. The degree of 

 difference depends in large measure upon the length of time during which the faunas 

 have been separated, so that here again we have another factor, the historic factor, 

 i.e.:, the geological history. Indeed, the present distribution of animals is chiefly 

 the outcome of their geological history. Now, geologists have shown that the various 

 classes of animals now living are of different ages, some of much more recent origin 

 than others. Their dispersal over the earth's surface has thus taken place at different 

 periods of the earth's history, so that this present distribution has been influenced in 

 various ways by their past history. Then again, the means of dispersal possessed by 

 animals is almost unlimited in its variety, and is another important factor in deter- 



