186 
the Carolinian fauna will be about the same, but the exact figures cannot 
as yet be given. To the Carolinian fauna belong also the great majority 
of the other forms of animal life in the State. 
As some members of the Academy may not be acquainted with Dr. 
Merriam’s paper I would state that he divides the continent of America, 
according to the distribution of its animals and plants, into three primary 
transcontinental regions, viz., Boreal, Austral and Tropical. The Boreal 
region covers the whole of the northern part of the continent from the 
Polar sea southward to near the northern boundary of the United States. 
and occupies also the higher parts of the three great mountain systems, 
viz., the Sierra-Cascade range, the Rocky and the Alleghany mountains. 
The Tropical region is represented in the southern part of the penin- 
sula of Florida only. The Austral occupies the intervening territory, cov- 
ering the whole of the United States and Mexico except the Boreal moun- 
tains and Tropical lowlands. 
Each of these three great regions is again subdivided into a number 
of minor belts or areas, known as zones, and characterized by particular 
associations of animals and plants, the Austral region, which alone is 
represented in Indiana, being subdivided into the three transcontinental 
belts mentioned above, namely, the ‘Transition,’ “Upper Austral” and 
“Lower Austral” zones. 
THE TRANSITION ZONE. 
The uppermost of the three Austral divisions is the transcontinental 
belt in which the Boreal and Austral elements overlap. In Indiana it is 
represented in the two northern tiers of counties, which counties embrace 
several hundred fresh water lakes within their bounds. These lakes range 
in size from an area of half an acre up to five and a half square miles. 
About their margins are often extensive areas of low boggy land covered 
with numerous forms of plant life whose main distribution is far to the 
north and which have here their southern limit. Among the more charac- 
teristic plants of the Alleghanian flora, which are found only in the north- 
ern fourth of Indiana, are the following: Larch or tamarack, Larix lari- 
cina (Du Roi); arbor vitae or white cedar, Thuja occidentalis L.; false 
lily of the valley, Unifolium canadense (Desf.); moceasin flower, Cypri- 
pedium acaule Ait.; showy lady’s slipper, Cypripedium reginae Walt.; 
bog orchis, Arethusa bulbosa L.; fen orchis, Leptorchis loeselii (L.) ; sweet 
fern, Comptonia peregrina (.); paper or canoe birch, Betula papyrifera 
Marsh; speckled or hoary alder, Alnus incana (.) ; gold-thread, Coptis tri- 
