IV INTRODUCTION. 



described by the Editor. The greater part of the second half-volume 

 on Mammalia is written, and much- progress has been made with 

 all other parts of the work, so that there is every prospect of the 

 whole being issued in the course of the next few years. 



The limits adopted for the fauna are those of the dependencies 

 of India, with the addition of Ceylon, which, although British, is 

 not under the Indian Government. Within the limits thus de- 

 fined are comprised all India proper and the Himalayas, the Punjab, 

 Sind, Baluchistan, all the Kashmir territories, with Gilgit, Ladak, 

 &c., Nepal, Sikhira, Bhutan, and other Cis-Himalayan States, 

 Assam, the countries between Assam and Burma, such as the Khasi 

 and Naga hills and Manipur, the whole of Burma, with Karennee 

 and, of course, Tenasserim and the Mergui Archipelago, and, lastly, 

 the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Afghanistan, Kashgaria, Tibet, 

 Yunnan, Siam, and the Malay Peninsula south of Tenasserim are 

 excluded. A few States, such as Nepal and Bhutan, at present 

 not accessible to Europeans, are comprised, because it would be 

 difficult to leave them out ; scarcely art animal occurs in either not 

 found also in British territories or in protected States,, such LS 

 Sil^him. 



The whole of India and its dependencies, with the exception of the 

 higher Himalayas and Trans-Himalayan tracts, is included in the 

 Oriental Region, one of the six great zoological regions* into \\hich 

 the terrestrial surface of the globe was divided by Sclater, whose 

 views have been adopted by Wallace and others. Several Ethiopian 

 and Palaearctic genera are intermixed with forms characteristic of 

 the Oriental Region in North-western India, and some of these 

 forms range throughout the Peninsula, but not further to the 

 eastward. 



The division of the area into zoological subregions is somewhat 

 difficult, the affinities of the different subdivisions being compli- 



* These six zoological regions are the following : 



I. Palceardic : Europe, Africa north of tbe Sahara, and Asia north of the 

 Himalayas. 



II. Ethiopian : Africa south of the Sahara. 



III. Oriental: India and South-eastern Asia, with the Malay Archipelago, 

 as far east as Java, Bali, Borneo, and the Philippines. 



IV. Australian: Australia, Celebes, New Guinea, New Zealand, and the 

 islands of the Pacific. 



V. Nearctic : America north of the Tropic of Cancer. 



VI. Neotropical: Central and Sduth America. 



For further particulars, see Wallace's ' Geographical Distribution of 

 Animal.-..' 



