^geriidae 



moths which are found in the United States and Canada. The 

 area is vast, and zoologists as well as botanists have for the pur- 

 poses of science subdivided the region into what are known as 

 "faunal subregions," or "botanical subregions." These subdi- 

 visions of the territory are entirely natural and are based upon a 

 knowledge of the flora and fauna of each area. Both flora and 

 fauna are more or less dependent upon conditions of soil, rainfall, 

 and temperature. 



Beginning with the Atlantic coast, we find a large area ex- 

 tending from Nova Scotia, Quebec, and Ontario, southward 

 through New England, the Middle States, and the Eastern Cen- 

 tral States as far south as the Carolinas and northern Georgia, 

 Alabama, and Mississippi, westward into Arkansas, Missouri, and 

 eastern Kansas, then northward through eastern Iowa and Minne- 

 sota, in which, with some slight variations, the predominant fea- 

 tures of the vegetation and of the fauna are alike. In a broad 

 way this territory is known as the Appalachian subregion. It 

 has been subdivided into two parts, to the more northern of 

 which has been applied the name Canadian, and to the southern 

 the name Carolinian. These minor subdivisions of the broader 

 subregion are quite natural, and are based upon the fact that cer- 

 tain groups of plants and animals are characteristic of the one 

 which are not characteristic of the other; yet upon the whole the 

 character of the vegetation and of the animal life of the two lesser 

 areas is in most respects quite similar. The genera are practi- 

 cally the same throughout these territories. It was, when the 

 country was first discovered by white men, a region of trees, 

 except in northern Indiana and parts of Illinois, Iowa, and Minne- 

 sota, where there were prairies; but on these prairies, where trees 

 grew, they were for the most part representatives of the same 

 genera which were found through the eastern parts of the domain, 

 and in many cases were the same species. Accompanying the 

 plants are the insects which feed upon them. 



Beginning on the extreme southern portions of the coast of 

 North Carolina and running along the coast of South Carolina 

 through eastern and southern Georgia, northern Florida, and 

 westward along the Gulf of Mexico, we have a strip of territory 

 preserving many of the floral and faunal peculiarities of the Appa- 

 lachian subregion, but possessing distinctive features of its own. 



388 



