114 GENERxiL EVOLUTIOK 



ly of papillose type of tlieir Old World representatives, the Zonu- 

 ridae, and partly the smooth or scaly type of the cosmopolite Scin- 

 cidse, which are inferior to them. 



The snake-like forms of the families of the Lacertilia Lepto- 

 glossa greatly predominate in the Southern Hemisphere ; also 

 those with undeveloped palj^ebrae. 



The Neotropical type of Testudinata is quite coincident with 

 the family Characinidae in relations. It is, like it, largely dis- 

 tributed over the Southern Hemisphere, and like it may be re- 

 garded, in respect to its pelvic peculiarities, as higher than the 

 remaining types, but in its generalized character and relationship 

 to the past periods may be called lower. 



The Neotropical type of Batrachia anura, that is, the Arcifera, 

 is lower in developmental characters than the opposed series, the 

 Eaniformia ; such of the latter as are found in its limits partake 

 in some way of larval incomjileteness. The Arcifera are chiefly 

 distributed elsewhere in Australia, where no Eaniformia exist.* 

 Those genera of Old World Eaniformia of the lowest or toothless 

 group, which display the least development of the cranial bones, 

 as Brachymerus and Breviceps, are of the Southern Hemisphere — 

 South African. 



The Pullastrine birds are a generalized group, inferior to the 

 group opposed to them — the Gallinae. Their typical forms, like 

 the last, are distributed to the Neotropical and Australian regions : 

 the outliers (pigeons) are not so numerously distributed in the 

 other regions. 



The Struthious birds, the most synthetic of the class, belong 

 exclusively to the Southern Hemisphere ; as is well known, they 

 chiefly abound in Australia and its adjacent islands, with an abun- 

 dant outlying type — the Tinamus — in South America. 



The penguins, which only of all birds display the metatarsus 

 nearly divided, inhabit the Antarctic regions and Cape Horn. 



* The Eucnemis bicolor, Gray, would appear to be an exception, were its generic 

 and subordinate affinities truly represented by its name. I have examined the type 

 specimen through the kindness of Dr. Giinther, and can state that it is not an Ixa- 

 lus {= Eucnemis), and does not even belong to the Eaniformia, but is an Arcifer of 

 the family HyUdae. If it be not a young Calamita or Hyla, it will be a Hylella near 

 the K carnea type. (Boulenger, in 1882, determined it to be a Hylella. Ed. 

 1886.) 



Giinther states that Hylorana erpthraea has been found at the extreme northern 

 point — Cape York — of Australia. If so, the case is parallel to the occurrences of 

 the Raniform Ranula in northern South America. 



