22 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [part iit, 



along the wliole of which there is (almost certainly) one con- 

 tinuous virgin forest. Its greatest extent from north to south, is 

 from the mouths of the Orinooko to the eastern slopes of the 

 Andes near La Paz in Bolivia and a little north of Sta, Cruz de 

 la Sierra (lat. 18° S.), a distance of about 1,900 miles. Within this 

 area of continuous forests, are included some open " campos," or 

 patches of pasture lands, the most important being, — the Campos 

 of the Upper Kio Branco on the northern boundary of Brazil ; a 

 tract in the interior of British Guiana ; and another on the 

 northern bank of the Amazon near its mouth, and extending 

 some little distance on its south bank at Santarem. On the 

 northern bank of the Orinooko are the Llanos, or flat open plains, 

 partly flooded in the rainy season ; but much of the interior of 

 Venezuela appears to be forest country. The forest again pre- 

 vails from Panama to Maracaybo, and southwards in the Magda- 

 lena vaUey ; and on all the western side of the Andes to about 

 100 miles south of Guayaquil. On the N.E. coast of Brazil is a 

 tract of open country, in some parts of which (as near Ceara) 

 rain does not fall for years together ; but south of Cape St. 

 Eoque the coast-forests of Brazil commence, extending to lat. 

 30° S., clothing all the valleys and hill sides as far inland as the 

 higher mountain ranges, and even penetrating up the great valleys 

 far into the interior. To the south-west the forest country re- 

 appears in Paraguay, and extends in patches and partially 

 wooded country, till it almost reaches the southern extension of 

 the Amazonian i'orests. The interior of Brazil is thus in the 

 position of a great island-plateau, rising out of, and surrounded 

 by, a lowland region of ever-verdant forest. The Brazilian sub- 

 region compi'iscs all this forest-country and its included open 

 tracts, and so far beyond it as there exists sufficient woody 

 vegetation to support its peculiar forms of life. It thus ex- 

 tends considerably beyond the tropic in Paraguay and south 

 Brazil ; wliile the great desert of Chaco, extending from 25° to 

 30° S., lat. between the Parana and the Andes, as W' ell as the high 

 plateaus of the Andean range, with the strip of sandy desert on 

 the Pacific coast as far as to about 5° of south latitude, belong to 

 south temperate America, or the sub-region of tlie Andes. 



