Quarterly Journal of Conchology. 285 



Euparypha, Patula and a whole series oi Pupa of European facies. 

 In short, these boundaries are not Hke those made by treaty, 

 whether at Vienna or Frankfort, but what they lose in definite- 

 ness they gain in permanency, for whereas the political map of 

 Europe fifty years ago would now be pretty antiquated, and that 

 of a century back useless, it would require many centuries, or 

 rather hundreds of centuries, before there was any perceptible 

 change in the conchological map of the same region. 



The following are the Provinces defined by Dr. Sclater, and 

 now generally admitted. 



I, The Pal^arctic Province; 2, The Ethiopian Province; 

 3, The Pal/eotropical Province ; 4, The Australasian 

 Province; 5, The Nearctic Province; 6, The Neotropical 

 Province. 



II. The Palaearctic Province. — We include under this 

 Province, with reference to the Mollusca, all Europe, Africa north 

 of the Sahara, the Atlantic Islands (the Azores, the Madeira 

 Archipelago, the Canaries and Cape de Verdes), Asia north of the 

 line of deserts, and, also, Arctic America, but we exclude Japan — 

 contrary to Mr. Wallace's views in his excellent work on the 

 Geographical Distribution of Animals — as the genera Cyclophoris, 

 Alycceus, Pupina and Helicina are undoubtedly tropical, and the 

 Japanese Clausilice are related to the tropical forms of Burmah, 

 Siam, etc., and not to the European species. With regard to 

 Arctic America we would refer to a very interesting article by Mr. 

 Binney, " Catalogue of the Terrestrial Air-breathing Mollusks of 

 North America," in the Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology, in which he gives a list of -^T) species of the " Northern 

 Region," of which 13 are also found in Europe. It is our opinion, 

 from the similarity of the Siberian to the European fauna, that 

 these species spread to America by way of Asia, across the narrow 

 Behring's Straits rather than by Iceland and Greenland, and the 



