DISTRIBUTION OF THE FAUNAS. 375 



among the mammals are the bison, deer, ox, horse, hog, nu- 

 merous rodents, especially squirrels, and hares, nearly all the 

 insectivora, weasels, martens, wolves, foxes, wild cats, &c. 

 On the other hand, there are no edentata and no quadrumana, 

 with the exception of some monkeys on the two slopes of the 

 Atlas and in Japan. Among birds, there is a multitude of 

 climbers, passerine, gallinaceous, and many rapacious fami- 

 lies. Of reptiles, there are lizards and tortoises of small or 

 medium size, serpents, and many batrachians, but no croco- 

 diles. Of fishes, there is the trout family, the cyprinoids, 

 the sturgeons, the pikes, the cod, and especially the great 

 family of herrings and scomberoids, to which latter belong 

 the mackerel and the tunny. All classes of the mollusca are 

 represented ; though the cephalopods are less numerous than 

 in the torrid zone. There is an infinite number of articu- 

 lata of every type, as well as numerous polyps, though the 

 corals proper do not yet appear abundantly. 



611. On each of the two continents of Europe and 

 America, there is a certain number of species extending 

 from one extreme of the temperate zone to the other. Such, 

 for example, are the deer, the bison, the cougar, the flying- 

 squirrel, numerous birds of prey, several tortoises, and the 

 rattle-snake, in America. In Europe, the brown bear, wolf, 

 swallow, and many birds of prey. Some species have a still 

 wider range, like the ermine, which is found from Behring's 

 Straits to the Himalaya Mountains that is to say, from the 

 coldest regions of the arctic zone to the southern confines of 

 the temperate zone. It is the same with the musk-rat, which 

 is found from the mouth of Mackenzie's River to Florida. 

 The field-mouse has an equal range in Europe. Other species, 

 on the contrary, are limited to one region. The Canadian elk 

 is confined to he northern portion of the fauna ; while the 

 prairie wolf, the fox-squirrel, the Bassaris, and numerous 

 birds, never leave the southern portion.* 



* The types which are peculiar to temperate America, and are not found 

 in Europe, are the opossum, several genera of insectivora, among them 

 the shrew-mole (Scalops aquaticus), and the star-nose mole (Condylwm 

 cristata), which replaces the Myyale of the Old World ; several genera 

 of rodents, especially the musk-rat. Among the types characteristic of 

 America must also be reckoned the mapping-turtle among the tortoises ; 

 the Mendbranchut and Menopoma among the Salamanders ; the Lepidos- 

 teus and Amia among the fishes ; and, finally, the Limuhts among the 



