2 Game of F'.urope, W. & N. Asia & America 



which is really its proper place. On the whole, however, the advantages 

 of the plan adopted outweigh, in the author's opinion, the disadvantages. 

 In the eastern hemisphere, as we pass from northern latitudes to the 

 neighbourhood of the Mediterranean in Europe and the confines of 

 Kashmir in Asia, the fauna, as might have been expected, departs more 

 and more from the boreal type and tends to become more differentiated. 

 That is to say, the circumpolar species tend to disappear and to be replaced 

 by types peculiar to this hemisphere. And, as a matter of tact, this 

 Mediterranean fauna is very closely related to that of North Africa, with 

 which indeed it is now generally grouped by the students of the geo- 

 graphical distribution of animals. 



The object of the present series of volumes is not, however, to treat of 

 that branch of zoology, but to afford the sportsman information with 

 regard to the game animals of particular continents. Consequently the 

 animals of North Africa were described in the volume devoted to the 

 game fauna of the African continent, while those inhabiting the opposite 

 shore of the Mediterranean find a place in the present work. 



A very similar change in the character of the fauna occurs in North 

 America ; and when the Sonoran district of Mexico is reached the same 

 disappearance of the circumpolar forms accompanied by the appearance ot 

 types more or less peculiar to this tract is noticeable. The Sonoran region 

 is, in fact, so far as its fliuna is concerned, analogous to the Mediterranean 

 region of the Old World. And it is not a little remarkable that what 

 may be called representative types occur in the two areas ; the southern 

 lynx of the Mediterranean tract representing, for instance, the red lynx of 

 the Sonoran area. To the latter area belongs, apparently, the prongbuck, 

 although its range now extends much more to the north. And in the Old 

 World a nearly parallel case is that of the fallow-deer, which, although 

 typically a Mediterranean species, has now a considerable range in the more 

 northern portions of Europe. 



