44, ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS. 
Europe ; while to the south it is connected to the Aus- 
tralian division by the islands of Papua or New Guinea, 
New Caledonia, and New Ireland. 
(60.) Aregion so vast in extent, and so diversified in its 
temperature and productions, may naturally be supposed 
to be extremely difficult to be characterised, as a whole, 
with precision: nor is this, indeed, necessary to our present 
purpose. It will bea sufficient sanction to the justness of 
considering it as a peculiar division of zoological geogra- 
phy, if, upon attentively comparing its animals with those 
of Europe and Africa, we discover differences so strongly 
marked as to separate it from both. If, however, any 
particular feature in Asiatic zoology be selected as pe- 
culiarly striking, it would undoubtedly be the number 
and importance of those domestic animals which it has 
furnished to the civilised world ; and which are not only 
useful and necessary to the inhabitants of the older con- 
tinents, but even more so to those of America and Austra- 
lia,where there does not appear to have been other spe- 
cies equally destined to supply the wants, or abridge the 
labours, of civilised man. When it is considered that 
the horse is generally supposed to have originally been 
a native of the Tartarian deserts; that the domestication 
of oxen is conjectured first to have taken place in West- 
ern Asia, by the Caucasian nations ; that all the breeds 
of our domestic fowl have unquestionably sprung from 
southern Asia, which is likewise the native region of 
the peacock ; we must admit the justness of the above 
remark. 
(61.) The Asiatic range may be divided into three 
sections, or sub-provinces, indicated both by their geo- 
graphic peculiarities, and the nature of their respective 
animals. The first commences from the polar regions, 
and includes the whole of Asiatic Russia: its natural 
boundaries to the west are the Ural mountains ; and to 
the south, the lofty Altain chain—the cradle, as it has 
been termed, of the Mongolian race. The second in- 
cludes the little known empires of China and Japan, 
with Thibet, the Tartarian provinces bordering Persia, 
