4 Elliot, In Memoriam: Philip Lutley Sclater. [jan. 



country, but to include the birds of the world, he soon found this 

 would be too great an undertaking, and he decided to confine his 

 investigations to the avifaunas of Central and South America, and 

 it was in those regions the greater part of his work was accom- 

 plished. But of course, as secretary of a society which carried on 

 its works practically over the entire world, he was led to investigate 

 from time to time families and species far removed from his chosen 

 field of labor, and he published important papers and memoirs 

 on mammals and birds of Asia and Africa and other eastern lands. 



In 1858 he published his scheme for the sLx great geographical 

 divisions of the earth. These were the Nearctic — including Green- 

 land, and all North America and the northern half of Mexico ; Neo- 

 tropical — southern half of Mexico, West Indies Islands, Central 

 America, and South America, with the Falkland and Galapagos 

 Islands ; Palaearctic — all Africa north of the Atlas Mountains, 

 Europe, Asia Minor, Persia, Asia north of the Himalayas, northern 

 China, Japan and Aleutian Islands; Ethiopian — Africa, south 

 of the Atlas range, Madagascar, Bourbon, Socotra and Arabia to 

 the Persian Gulf; Indian — India, Ceylon, Burma, Malacca, Asia 

 south of the Himalayas, south China, Philippines, Borneo, Java, 

 Sumatra and adjacent islands; Australian — Papua, Australia, 

 Tasmania and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. 



This arrangement was at once accepted as one admirably con- 

 ceived, and for generalizing a geographical distribution on a broad 

 scale it will remain as evidence of Sclater's skill and foresight in 

 establishing the natural boundaries of birds upon the earth. 



I read not long ago in one of our metropolitan dailies, in a short 

 notice of Sclater's career, after mentioning this arrangement pro- 

 posed by him, it stated that "it was said, he paved the way for 

 Darwin." This, of course, was merely a layman's short-sighted 

 view, and no one would be more quick to decline the honor than 

 Sclater himself, for no one paved the way for the great investigator, 

 he hewed his own road, and no man was ever able to walk abreast 

 with him upon it, save one alone, Wallace. 



The meetings of the Society, which were held twice a month 

 except in summer, during the period Sclater was Secretary, were 

 most interesting, and in the sixties and seventies of the last century, 

 when I resided abroad, I was usually present, indeed at one time 



