CHAPTER IV. 



ON ZOOLOGICAL REGIONS. 



To the older school of Naturalists the native country of an animal 

 was of little importance, except in as far as climates differed. 

 Animals were supposed to be specially adapted to live in certain 

 zones or under certain physical conditions, and it was hardly 

 recognised that apart from these conditions there was any 

 influence in locality which could materially affect them. It 

 was believed that, while the animals of tropical, temperate, and 

 arctic climates, essentially differed ; those of the tropics were 

 essentially alike all over the world. A group of animals was 

 said to inhabit the "Indies;" and important differences of 

 structure were often overlooked from the idea, that creatures 

 equally adapted to live in hot countries and with certain 

 general resemblances, would naturally be related to each other. 

 Thus the Toucans and Hornbills, the Humming- Birds and Sun- 

 Birds, and even the Tapirs and the Elephants, came to be 

 popularly associated as slightly modified varieties of tropical 

 forms of life; while to naturalists, who were acquainted with 

 the essential differences of structure, it was a never-failing 

 source of surprise, that under climates and conditions so 

 apparently identical, such strangely divergent forms should 

 be produced. 



To the modern naturalist, on the other hand, the native 

 country (or " habitat " as it is technically termed) of an animal 



