750 



THE ORIENTAL REGION AND ITS POSITION IN 



ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



By E. Comber, f.z.s. 



(Read before the Bombay Natural, History Society on the 



27th November, 1902.) 



Prior to the adoption of the general theory of evolution, when 

 species were regarded as " special creations," it never occurred to 

 any one that there was any direct advantage in studying the com- 

 parative faunas of different countries or the exact areas occupied by 

 various species or groups of animals. But when Darwin's great reve- 

 lations taught us to realise the relationships of different animals, it 

 was at once seen that distribution was a most important study in help- 

 ino" to unravel the mysteries of the book of Nature, in addition to the 

 study of the habits, structure and affinities of animals. The subject of 

 geographical distribution, however, entails the study of much more 

 than would at first appear probable ; for, in addition to the more 

 mapping out of the areas over which any species or group ranges, it 

 involves the interesting and complex questions of why it should be 

 confined to that region, which may even consist of two or more dis- 

 continuous areas, and how it came to be present there, perhaps away 

 from all its near relations. We are thus led into the whole past 

 history of the world, organic and inorganic, throughout a large por- 

 tion of geological time, of the true affinities of animals, including 

 their extinct forms and of past migrations which may be accounted 

 for by the submergence or upheaval of certain areas of the earth's 

 surface, causing connections or separations of existing land areas, or 

 by alterations of geological climates, such, for instance, as the well- 

 known glacial epoch of Northern Europe. 



It is a subject to which there has been little or no direct reference 

 in the published records of this Society, although boundless informa- 

 tion of a scattered nature is of course to be discovered in the thirteen 

 volumes of our Journal by those who come to analyse, tabulate and 

 draw conclusions from the many lists of local faunas — mostly of course 

 treatino" of some one group or class — that have appeared in its pages. 



A short summary of the position and oharacteristicsi of the general 

 fauna of the Oriental — or as some authorities have preferred to 

 designate it, the Indian or Indo- Malayan — region at the present time 

 will therefore, I believe, interest and I hope, to some extent, assist 



