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CHAPTER XLIII. 



GREAT AND MINOR MAMMALIAN REGIONS. 



It appears to me that the whole mammalian fauua now on the globe uaturallj' divides itself 

 into four great primary pro\ances of nearly equal value, each of which is subdi^'isible into two 

 or more sections. These are : — 



1. The Euroijaso-Asiatic, embracing 1. The Scandinavian district; 2. The Mediterranean dis- 

 trict; 3. The Mongolian district. 



2. The Africano-Indian, including 1. Africa, south of the Sahara; 2. The Indo-Malayan 

 district. 



3. The Australian, including 1. Australia; 2. New Guinea; 3. Polynesia. 



4. The American, including 1. North America; 2. South America. 



I. The EuroPvEO- Asiatic Region. — This consists of Europe, North Africa, as far south as the 

 southern limits of the Sahara, the northern half of Arabia, Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, and all Asia 

 (including Japan, &c.) north of the southern slope of the Himmalaj'an range. 



This corresponds with Dr. Sclater's Paleearctic region, with some exceptions. It carries 

 the Mediterranean district considerably further south into Africa than he does. He stojJS at Mount 

 Atlas, only including that portion of Africa which is north of that range. I look upon the barrier 

 between ^Ethiopia and North Africa to be the Sahara, and not Mount Atlas. And not only so, 

 but that the boundary line lies not on the north of the Sahara nor yet in the middle, but 

 along its southern margin. Its inhabitants, although many of them are peculiar to itself, are 

 decidedly of northern forms. Species of Hedgehog, Jerboa, the northern tj^e of Shrews, Weasel, 

 &c., all indicate a northern affinity. It woidcl appear, that on the Sahara being raised from the 

 bottom of the sea into its present position, it had been colonised from the north rather than from 

 the south, and this is quite in accordance with the jDhysical geography of the country. No one, 

 now-a-days, will imagine that Ihe bed of the Sahara was all raised simultaneously — at one shot, as it 

 were. It must have been by degrees ; and as the seat of elevation is shown bj^ the inclination 

 of the strata along the southern flanks of Mount Atlas, to have been in that range, it follows that 

 the first part of the desert raised would be that nearest to it, the north, and the last the south : 

 hence the Saharan Lake or Sea would be always diminished from the north, and the last remnants 

 of it would be that most to the south ; so, too, the colonisation woidd always be from the north, 

 until the whole elevation was completed. Then it would, no doubt, be oijcii to the animals from 



