Vi PREFACE. 



utterly useless to any scientific student. Every systematic- 

 author (and they were few) had, without exception, chosen 

 to regard this unexplored field as zoologically distinct, a 

 thing apart, and consequently nearly every species dealt 

 with was regarded as being new to Science. This predispo- 

 sition doubtless caused Lefroy (7. c. 177) to pronounce that 

 the " species are of limited distribution, confined to distinct 

 areas, and the Indian forms are, so far as known, confined 

 to this geographical region," by which he doubtless referred 

 to British India. This, however, is not a single zoological 

 region ; on the contrary, the Palsearctic Region comprises 

 all temperate Europe and Asia, its southern boundary being 

 somewhat indefinite, though it is advisable to comprise in it 

 all Afghanistan, Baluchistan, and the Punjab ; and it comes 

 down to a little below the upper limit of forests in the Hima- 

 layas. It has been said that this region differs from the 

 Oriental by negative characters only ; a host of the tropical 

 families and genera being absent, while there is little or 

 nothing but peculiar species to characterise it absolutely. 

 The Oriental Region consists of all India from the limits of 

 the Palasarctic Region, Indo-China and all the Malay penin- 

 sula and islands as far east as Java and Bali. The sul>- 

 divisions of the Oriental Region are : (1) the Central 

 Indian, which in all its essential features is wholly Oriental 

 in its fauna ; (2) the Ceylonese, comprising Ceylon and the 

 southern extremity of India : this is a mountainous forest 

 region, and possesses several peculiar forms as well as some 

 Malayan types not found in the first subregion ; (3) the 

 Indo-( Chinese subregion, comprising South China, Siam and 

 Burma, extending westward along the Himalayan range to 

 an altitude of about nine or ten thousand feet, and south- 

 ward to Tenasserim ; and (4) the Malayan (' The Geo- 

 graphical Distribution of Animals,' by Alfred Russel 

 Wallace, i, pp. 71-76). Hence we see no bar to the occur- 

 rence in the hills of northern, and especially north-western,. 



