CHAP. XII.] THE ORIENTAL REGION. 323 
22. Cervus ... Oriental and Palearctic ; family not Ethiopian. 
23. Cervulus ... Oriental ; family not Ethiopian. 
24. Bibos ... .... Palearctic and Oriental. 
25. Portax ... Oriental. 
26. Gazella .... Palearctic and Ethiopian. 
27. Antilope ... Oriental. 
28. Tetraceros  ... Oriental. 
29. Elephas ... Oriental species. 
30. Mus ... Cosmopolite nearly. 
31. Platacanthomys Oriental. 
32. Meriones ... Very wide range. 
33. Spalacomys ... Oriental. 
34. Sciurus ... Almost Cosmopolite. 
35. Pteromys ... Palearctic and Oriental to China and Malaya. 
36. Hystrix .... Wide range. 
37. Lepus ... ... Wide range. 
38. Manis ... ... Ethiopian and Oriental to Malaya. 
Out of the above 38 genera, 8 have so wide a distribution as 
to give no special geographical indications. Of the remaining 30, 
whose geographical position we have noted, 14 are Oriental only ; 
5 have as much right to be considered Oriental as Ethiopian, 
extending as they do over the greater part of the Oriental 
region; 2 (the hyzna and gazelle) show Paleearctic rather than 
Ethiopian affinity ; 7 are Palearctic and Oriental but not Ethio- 
pian ; and only 2 (Cynelurus and Mellivora) can be considered 
as especially Ethiopian. We must also give due weight to the 
fact that we have here Urside and Cervide, two families entirely 
absent from the Ethiopian region, and we shall then be forced 
to conclude that the affinities of the Indian peninsula are not 
only clearly Oriental, but that the Ethiopian element is really 
present in a far less degree than the Palearctic. 
Birds—tThe naturalists who have adopted the “Ethiopian 
theory ” of the fauna of Hindostan, have always supported their 
views by an appeal to the class of birds; maintaining, that not 
only are almost all the characteristic Himalayan and Malayan 
genera absent, but that their place is to a great extent supplied 
by others which are characteristic of the Ethiopian region. After 
a careful examination of the subject, Mr. Elwes, in a paper read 
before the Zoological Society (June 1873) came to the conclu- 
sion, that this view was an erroneous one, founded on the fact 
that the birds of the plains are the more abundant and more 
