GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION OF LIFE IN NORTH AMERICA. 409 
fornian ‘‘sub-regions.” He admits that the eastern division is character- 
ized by but a single mammalian genus, namely, the star-nosed mole 
(Condylura). 
In characterizing the so-called central or Rocky mountain sub-re- 
gion, he states that the prong-horned antelope, the mountain goat, the 
the mountain sheep, and the prairie dog are peculiar to it, forgetting 
that the antelope ranges from the Mexican plateau nerthward over the 
Great plains and Great basin, and westward over much of California; 
that the mountain goat inh bits British Columbia and the Cascade 
‘ange as well as the Rocky mountains; that the mountain sheep is 
common in the High Sierra in California and ranges northward to the 
Arctic Circle in Alaska; leaving the prairie dog as the only one con- 
fined to the region. 
The Pacific or * Californian sub-region ” he defines as ‘“‘ the compar- 
atively narrow strip of country between the Sierra Nevada and the 
Pacitic. To the north it may include Vancouver's Island and the 
southern part of British Columbia.” Under the head of the mamimalia 
of this area, he enumerates eight genera as “not found in any other 
part of the Nearctic region,” namely, Macrotus, Antrozous, Urotrichus, 
Neosorex, Bassaris, Enhydra, Morunga, and Haploodon. A. more erro- 
neous statement could hardly be made. Of the two pelagic genera, 
Morunga and Enhydra |= Latax |, the former does not enter the region 
at all and the latter barely reaches it; while of the non-pelagic genera 
three, Macrotus |= Otopterus|, Antrozous, and Bassaris |= Bassa- 
riscus|, range over the Sonoran region from Texas and the Mexican 
plateau across New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of southern Nevada 
and California, and the sub-genus Neosorex occurs over pretty much 
the whole of Boreal America from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The 
two remaining genera only are confined to the Californian division, 
namely, Urotrichus |= Neurotrichus| and Haploodon [=Aplodontia}. 
Both are isolated types, inhabiting the Pacific coast country from 
northern California to British Columbia (the latter having no near rela- 
tive in any part of the world, the former closely related to genera now 
living in eastern Asia). 
Hence it appears, so far as the mammalia are concerned, that these 
three supposed primary subdivisions of North America rest upon a 
misconception of fact, the Californian division possessing two peculiar 
genera, and the eastern and central divisions but a single peculiar 
genus each,—a quantity of difference it would be absurd to recognize 
as of sufficient weight to warrant the erection of zod-geographical 
divisions. * 
In a communication already referred to (North American Fauna, No. 
3, September, 1890) I stated the conclusion that the commonly accepted 
division of the United States into eastern, middle, and western proy- 
inces had no existence in nature, and that “the whole of extra-tropical 
