14 Journal of the Mitchell Society IJuly 



south of the Himalaya Mountains, as well as the islands of the 

 Malay Archipelago as far east as Borneo and Java. 



It has been combined by some with the Palsearctic and Ne- 

 arctic realms to form a single Arctogsean Realm, but it appears 

 to me to have too many southern forms to justify such an ar- 

 rangement, while others have combined it with the Ethiopian 

 to form an Indo-African realm but here the lack of too many 

 of the Ethiopian forms seems to be a sufficient bar to any such 

 proceeding. 



It possesses few peculiar groups of animals, the families 

 Tupaiidse (tree shrews), Galeopithecidse (flying lemurs), 

 and Tarsiidse being the most noteworthy among the mammals, 

 but the majority of its characteristic groups are shared with oth- 

 er realms, thus its elephants, hyanas, rhinoceros, scaly ant-eaters, 

 lemurs, old world monkeys, and great apes are represented also 

 in Africa, though by other species. Its boid snakes, and cecilian 

 amphibians are similarly found also in both the Ethiopian and 

 JSTeo-tropical realms. Its bear and deer and most of its in- 

 sectivorous mammals are otherwise mainly northern groups, 

 while it j)Ossesses in common with the ISTeo-tropical realm repre- 

 sentatives of the tapir family. Lung fishes, side-necked turtles, 

 and ostrich-like birds are absent, while elapid serpents are 

 present, as they are also in all the other southern realms, being 

 one of the very few groups found in all four tropical realms, 

 and not elsewhere, the parrots being the only other vertebrate 

 group which I can remember as having a similar range. 



The Northern Realm comprises all the earth's land surface 

 lying north of the boundaries of the four southern realms. 



It is characterised more by what it lacks than by what it 

 possesses, few groups of animals being confined exclusively 

 within its borders. 



'No elephants, tapirs, rhinoceros, hippopatamus, giraffes, 

 conies, no lemurs, monkeys of any kind, nor great apes, no 

 edentates or marsupials, no egg-laying mammals, hysenas or 

 cavies, no ostrich-like birds, no alligators, no boid nor elapid 

 serpents, no side-necked turtles, no cecilian amphibians nor lung 

 fishes occur, except that in the case of some of these groups a 

 single species or two intrudes more or less into its limits. 



