484 GEOGRAPHICAL ZOOLOGY. [part iv. 



genera typically characteristic of the North Temperate regions 

 which have a few species widely scattered on mountains, or in 

 the temperate parts of the Southern Hemisphere. Chili possesses 

 representatives of four of these genera — Argynnis, Lycccna, Co- 

 lias, and Deilephila ; and this has been thought by some natura- 

 lists to be of such importance as to outweigh the purely Neo- 

 tropical character of a large portion of the Chilian fauna, and 

 to render it advisable to join it on, as an outlying portion of a 

 great North Temperate zoological region. But when we re- 

 member that Argynnis occurs also in Java, and Lyccena in New 

 Zealand, while Colias ranges to Southern Africa, Malabar, and 

 the Sandwich Islands, we can hardly admit the argument to be 

 a sound one. For a fuller discussion of this question see Vol. 

 II., pp. 43 — 47. The remarkable fact of the existence of the 

 otherwise purely Neotropical genus, Urania, in Madagascar is 

 even more striking, supported as it is by the Antillean, Solenedon, 

 belonging to a family of Mammalia otherwise confined to Mada- 

 gascar, and by one or two Coleopterous genera, to be noticed 

 farther on as common to the two countries. Our view as to the 

 true explanation of this and analogous phenomena will be found 

 at Vol. I, p. 284. 



The division of the Castniidse (a family almost confined to 

 the Tropics), between the Neotropical and Australian regions, is 

 also a very curious and important phenomenon, because it seems 

 to point to a more remote connection between the two countries 

 than that indicated by the resemblance between the productions 

 of South Temperate America with those of Australia and New 

 Zealand; but we have already shown that the facts may be 

 explained in another way. (See Vol. I., pp. 398 and 404). 



The division of the Malay Archipelago between the Oriental 

 and Australian regions is clearly marked in the Lepidoptera, 

 and it is very curious that it should be so, for in this, if in any 

 group of animals, we should expect an almost complete fusion 

 to have been effected. Lepidoptera fly readily across wide 

 tracts of sea, and there is absolutely no climatal difference to 

 interfere with their free migration from island to island. Yet 

 we find no less than 10 genera abundant in the Indo-Malavan 



