Game Animals of India, etc. 



the wild sheep and deer of Central Asia to the exclusion 

 of others, and undoubtedly there is much to be said 

 for this view. On the other hand, the fauna of 

 Western Asia passes imperceptibly into that of Eastern 

 Europe, so that if Asia were taken as the limits of the 

 area to be included, the boundary would be fully as 

 arbitrary, from the point of view of the fauna, as is at 

 present the case, if, indeed, it were not more so. 



The area, as thus limited, contains an assemblage 

 of game animals belonging to two great zoological 

 provinces ; those of the cis-Indus and cis-Himalayan 

 portion of the area, together with Burma, Tenasserim, 

 and the Malay Peninsula, pertaining to what is called 

 the Oriental region, while those beyond these limits are 

 included in the Eastern Holarctic or Palaearctic region. 

 The northern frontiers of India and Burma are, in 

 fact, the meeting-place of two great faunas. In Burma 

 and India themselves minor zoological subdivisions 

 are indicated by the distribution of the game and 

 other animals. In Tenasserim, for example, the 

 animals are distinctly of a Malay type, as is instanced 

 by the presence of the tapir, the Malay bear, the 

 bantin, and the binturong. And these Malay types, 

 with an intermingling of peculiar species, like the 

 thamin deer, are traceable into Assam and the Eastern 

 Himalaya ; the Malay forms being perhaps even 

 more pronounced in the latter area than they are 

 in Burma. Other Malay types are the two smaller 

 species of Asiatic rhinoceros, one of which has pene- 

 trated into Lower Bengal. 



Ot the game animals of Burma itself, some, like 

 the gaur, are specifically identical with those of India ; 

 others, like the bantin, are Malay ; while others again 

 may be regarded as Eastern representatives of Indian 

 species. As an instance of the latter class m.ay be 

 cited the thamin deer and the Malay sambar, which 

 are respectively the Burmese representatives of the 

 Indian swamp-deer and Indian sambar. Assam forms 



