IX.] MEDITERRANEAN SUB-REGION. 357 



lizard (Eumeces quinquelineatus] is represented in Japan by a form 

 (E, marginatus] so closely allied that the two were long considered 

 inseparable, although they are now regarded as distinct 1 . All 

 these facts are indicative that Japan was formerly joined to both 

 Corea and Kamschatka, whence land was continued across Bering 

 Strait to unite the Old World with Alaska. 



Although, as already stated, the Mediterranean or Tyrrhenian 

 sub-region has strong claims to be regarded as Mediterra 

 representing a region by itself, it may be more con- nean Sub- 

 veniently considered here than later on in the 

 chapter. In addition to such parts of Africa and Arabia as lie 

 to the north of the Ethiopian region, this sub-region includes 

 Spain, those parts of Europe situated south of the Alps, together 

 with Turkey, Asia Minor, Persia, Baluchistan, and Afghanistan. 

 Whether Kashmir should be regarded as an aberrant outlier of 

 this region, I am not yet satisfied. Although gerbils (Gerbillus*) 

 are also found in the Oriental and Ethiopian regions, their 

 distribution in the Holarctic is very nearly coincident with the 

 limits of the present sub-region. 



Whereas to the north of the Mediterranean Sea a large pro- 

 portion of the mammals are more or less typically Holarctic, in 

 North Africa and Syria those with an Ethiopian facies are met 

 with, and an Oriental element makes its appearance in the eastern 

 districts of the sub-region. Even in Africa, however, some of the 

 forms have an Oriental facies, the Barbary ape (Macacus inuus) 

 belonging to a genus whose home is now in the Oriental region, 

 and which is totally unknown in the Ethiopian. As a wanderer 

 from the Ethiopian region, mention may first be made of a species 

 of jumping -shrew (Macroscelides) met with in Barbary, while 

 among the octodont family of the rodents, the gundi, forming 

 the sole representative of the genus Ctenodactylus, has its nearest 

 allies in Ethiopia, although it is confined to North Africa. The 

 Barbary ape, although occurring on the rock of Gibraltar, where it 

 may have been introduced, is otherwise confined to North Africa. 



1 See Boulenger, Cat. Lizards, Brit. Mtis. Vol. III. p. 369. 



2 Many writers separate certain species as Meriones, but as the two groups 

 are connected by G. indicus (see Lataste, Proc. ZooL Soc. 1884, p. 88), such 

 distinction seems superfluous. 



