52 ON THE GEOGRAPHY OP ANIMALS. 



are those belonging to the parrot and gallinaceous tribes. 

 In the former, Equinoctial Africa is very poor; but the 

 same latitudes, in Asia, furnish us with numerous and 

 splendid examples, both of genera and species, altogether 

 peculiar. The suctorial cockatoos (Microglossum Geoff.), 

 the large white cockatoos of Malacca, the elegant ring- 

 necked parrakeets of the continent, and the crimson- 

 coloured lories of the islands, are appropriated solely 

 to these regions. Lastly must be enumerated the splen- 

 did peacocks of the continent, and the wild cocks of 

 the islands, forming the genera Pavo, Polyplectron, 

 Argus, Lophyrus, Lophophorus, and Gallus, not one of 

 which has yet occurred beyond the limits of the Asiatic 

 range. 



(71.) On the remaining vertebrated animals, compre- 

 hending the fishes, reptiles, and serpents, peculiar to 

 these regions, little can be said; since their geographic 

 distribution has received little or no attention. The nu- 

 merous species, however, that have been made known by 

 the researches of Dr. Roxburgh, Dr. Buchanan Hamil- 

 ton, and General Hardwicke, prove that in these classes 

 nature is equally prolific, and that she has given to 

 India a vast number of genera which do not occur in 

 other countries. 



(72.) Of the invertebrated animals we must confine 

 ourselves to the Testacea, as embracing the more popular 

 study of conchology ; the Indian seas, more than any 

 other part of the world, abound with the greatest va- 

 riety of shell-fish, and exhibit a remarkable con- 

 trast to the paucity of species found under the parallel 

 latitudes of Africa and America. It is also a singular 

 fact, not hitherto noticed, that nearly three fourths of 

 these shells belong to animals entirely carnivorous ; who, 

 to support life, must be perpetually carrying on, like 

 the ferocious tigers of the continent, a destructive 

 warfare against the weaker animals of their own class. 

 The conchologist, who looks beyond the empty shell in 

 his museum, need hardly be reminded that the immense 

 number of species belonging to the genera Conus 3 Oliva, 



