214 REV. G. S. DOBBIE ON INFLUENCE OF CIVILIZATION 
millions of spiritless barbarians, still to-day, as they were 
two thousand years ago, enslaved and debased by irrefrag- 
able caste; at the opposite extremity lies Europe with its 
rapidly increasing populations, divided in race and in 
language, and estranged by national prejudice and ethical 
tendency, but united in desire to obtain the mastery over 
the arts and sciences on which depend the civilization and 
education of the world. But between China and Europe 
there is a boundless expanse of imperfectly explored, uncul- 
tivated, thinly-peopled territory, which stretches from the 
inhospitable precincts of the loftiest mountains on the 
globe, to the desolate tundras of the frigid zone, and 
which consists of rainless desert and irreclaimable swamp, 
of impenetrable forest and sterile steppe-land, containing 
vast areas which never can be made fit for the habitation 
of man. 
The Palearctic Region is most conveniently divided into 
three fairly well detined sub-regions——the Europasian, the 
Eremian, and the Chinese. The first of these includes 
nearly the whole of Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and 
Elburz countries, Siberia north of the Altai. the Island of 
Saghalien, and perhaps Yesso in Japan. A small portion 
of south-eastern Russia falls within the limits of the Eremian 
sub-region, which is composed of Africa north of the Atlas 
and the greater part of Western and Central Asia. The 
third sub-region consists of China with Manchuria and 
nearly the whole of Japan. 
Though the Palearctic is by far the largest of the six 
creat regions into which the land surface of the earth has 
been divided, its mammalian fauna is relatively poor. As 
the differentiation of form diminishes almost commensurately 
with the distance from the South Pole, it is not to be expected 
that, so far as the variety of its mammals is concerned, the 
Palearctic Region, in its high northern latitude, should take 
rank with the Indian, Ethiopian, and Neotropical regions. 
In a work recently published, Geography of Mammals, by 
Messrs W. L. and P. L. Sclater, the number of genera is 
stated to be 103, of which only 25 are endemic,—i.¢., absolutely 
confined within its bounds. Fifty-seven of these belong to 
the Europasian sub-region, and of these only 4 are endemic. 
