I.] ZOOLOGICAL REALMS. 25 



Although much previous work had been done on the subject, 

 the first real attempt to divide the land-areas of the 



, , . i-i Zoological 



globe into zoological provinces, or regions, was made Realms and 

 by Dr P. L. Sclater 1 in 1858. According to this Regions ' 

 scheme, which was mainly based on the study of Passerine birds, 

 the world was parcelled out into the following six zoological 

 regions, viz.: 



1. Palczarctic ; Europe, Northern Africa, Northern and Cen- 

 tral Asia. 



2. Ethiopian ; Africa south of the Atlas, and Madagascar. 



3. Indian, renamed Oriental by Dr Wallace; India, South- 

 eastern Asia, and part of the Malay Archipelago. 



4. Australian ; Australia, with New Guinea and the adjacent 

 islands, New Zealand, and Polynesia. 



5. Nearctic ; America as far south as Mexico. 



6. Neotropical ; Central and South America, with the West 

 Indies. 



This scheme, which has been adopted and developed in the 

 brilliant writings of Dr Wallace, has the important merit that it 

 coincides to a great extent with the leading geographical divisions 

 of the globe. It has, however, the serious drawback that it gives 

 no greater rank to Australasia and South America than to the other 

 divisions ; whilst the remarkable difference between the fauna of 

 Africa and Madagascar is overlooked. Further, the northern parts 

 of America are widely separated from those of Europe and Asia 

 to which they are faunistically extremely close. 



It should be added that in Dr Sclater's scheme the first four 

 regions, or those belonging to the Old World, were brigaded 

 together under the title of PAL^OG^EA, while the two last, or New 

 World regions, were bracketed as NEOG^EA. 



The next important classification was one propounded in 1868 

 by Professor Huxley 2 , who, basing his conclusions on the distri- 

 bution of the game-birds, divided the world into a northern and a 

 southern division, taking the name of ARCTOG^EA for the former, 

 and NOTOG^EA for the latter ; Notogaea being further sub-divided 

 into a Novo-Zelanian (New Zealand), Australian, and Austro- 



1 Appendix, No. 26. ' 2 Ibid., No. 18. 



