THE NEOTROPICAL REGION 69 



The evidence of the Bats, therefore, points unmistak- 

 ably to the inference that the West India Islands have 

 been peopled with Mammalian life from South and not 

 from North America. In this connection it may be noted 

 that Mr. Frank Chapman in an instructive article (4) on the 

 origin of the West Indian fauna, recently published, has 

 stated, as regards the birds, that the total number as yet 

 recorded as met with within the limits of this Sub-region 

 amounts to 550. Of these 303 are endemic, while the 

 remaining 247 may be allotted to the countries from 

 which they have been apparently derived as follows : — 



Common to North and South America .... 16 

 Of general distribution in the tropics . . . .56 

 South American (ten in the Windward Islands, three only 



in the Greater Antilles) 13 



Central American 3 



North American (all annual migrants from the north, 

 through Florida, and the larger proportion found in 

 Cuba) 160 



This summary gives us a clue to the origin of the 

 more recent additions to the West Indies fauna, which is 

 obviously by migration from the north. If, however, the 

 relationships of the 303 endemic species of Birds are 

 examined, it will be at once evident that they are all more 

 closely allied to South American than to North American 

 forms, and, like the Bats, show that the islands have been 

 stocked with life from the south. Moreover, Mr. Chapman, 

 as well as Mr. Wallace, has pointed out that nearly all the 

 more distinct and most characteristic West Indian Birds 

 are found in the Greater Antilles (i.e. Cuba, Hayti, Porto 

 Rico, and Jamaica), and that the Lesser Antilles form a 

 distinct group, the line of separation between the two 

 provinces coinciding nearly with the deep channel between 



