CHAPTER II. 



THE NOTOG^IC REALM. 



Definition and Characters of the Realm Australian Region Monotremes 

 Marsupials Rodents Carnivores Ungulates Bats List of Australian 

 and Papuan Genera Polynesian Region Hawaiian Region Austro- 

 Malayan Region Palaeontological History of Marsupials How Australia 

 received its Fauna. 



THE term Notogaea was first proposed, as stated in the preced- 

 ing chapter, by Professor Huxley 1 , to include not only the 

 Australian region of Dr Sclater, but likewise the Neotropical region 

 (Austro-Columbia) ; but an anonymous writer 2 appears to have 

 been the first to restrict it to the former of these areas 3 . This 

 view, as being, on the whole, the most convenient, is adopted here; 

 and the Notogasic realm may accordingly be taken as the first of 

 the three primary zoological divisions of the globe, and as equiva- 

 lent to the Australian region of Drs Sclater and Wallace. Accord- 

 ing to the latter writer 4 , " its central and most important masses 

 consist of Australia and New Guinea, in which the main features 

 of the region are fully developed. To the north-west it extends to 

 Celebes, in which a large proportion of the Australian characters 

 have disappeared, while Oriental types are mingled with them to 

 such an extent that it is rather difficult to determine where to 

 locate it. To the south-east it includes New Zealand, which is in 

 some respects so peculiar that it has even been proposed to con- 

 stitute it a distinct region. On the east it embraces the whole of 

 Oceania [Polynesia] to the Marquesas and Sandwich Islands, 



1 Appendix, No. 18. ' 2 Ibid., No. 4. 



3 The term Antarctogsea has been proposed by Dr Sclater (Appendix, 

 No. 27, p. 214), for this area, but it is not a happy one. 



4 Appendix, No. 32, vol. i., p. 387. 



