360 BULLETIN UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY. 



that the larger part of Hindostan should be joined to the African Eegion 

 rather than the Indian, since only a very few African genera occur here 

 that do not also range far to the eastward, or almost throughout the 

 Indian Eegion. According to von Pelzeln,* about one-third of the genera 

 of the "hindostanischen Fauna" are j)eculiar to it, while it shares almost 

 another third with IndoOhina. The remaining third (fourteen genera) 

 are common to the African Eegion, but all except four of them occur also 

 more or less generally over the Indian Eegion. Of these, two {Hymna and 

 "Eatelus" = Mellivora) scarcely reach the limits of the Indian Eegion 

 as here defined. Among the genera given by him as peculiar are, how- 

 ever, several that range beyond the Indian Peninsula. 



There is more reason for Mr. Wallace's separation of the Hindostan 

 Peninsula from the Indo-Chinese portion of the Indian Eegion, and its 

 subdivision into two "subregions" — a northern "Hindostan Subregion" 

 and a southern " Ceylonese Subregion". As already shown, the latter 

 has a number of peculiar forms, while three or four genera are also 

 peculiar to the Hindostan Peninsula at large. But the scale of division 

 that would make the Hindostan Peninsula separable into two subregions 

 would also require a somewhat similar subdivision of ludo-China, mak- 

 ing four divisions of what I here term the Continental Province. While 

 these divisions would have some natural basis, they are too detailed to 

 come into the category of divisions for which I adopt the term "prov- 

 ince ". 



Continental Province. — The Continental Province, with the limitations 

 here assumed, is nearly equivalent to Mr. Wallace's three "subregions", 

 termed respectively "Hindostan", "Ceylonese", and "Indo-Chinese". 

 Of about ninety-four genera represented in it, about two-thirds have a 

 pretty general range throughout the province, while only about one- 

 eighth are limited to the Hindostanese portion, including those already 

 named as almost peculiar to Ceylon and the low coast region east of the 

 Eastern Ghats. Excluding about a dozen that range over at least half 

 the surface of the globe, one-third of the remainder (more than one- 

 fourth of the whole) are common to the African Eegion ; more than one- 

 half (almost one-half of the whole) are restricted to the Indian Eegion 

 and a little more than one-fifth (about one-eighth of all) are peculiar 

 to the province. This shows, as already noted in discussing the fauna 



Burmah, Assam, and Bengal to the Kuenluen Mountains, thus embracing Nepal, Butau, 

 and Thibet. It is divided into five subregions, the two northernmost of which belong 

 mainly to the North Temperate Realm, (Festschrift z. Feier des fiinfundzwanzigjiib- 

 rigen Bestehens d. K.-K. Zool.-Bot. Gesells. in Wien, 187(>, pp. 53-74 u. Karte.) The 

 fauna of the Thibetan plateau, as claimed by Mr. Blandford, being boreal and alpine, 

 and having almost nothing in common with the tropical region to the southward, the 

 artificial character of von Pelzeln's " subregions" is shown by his assuming the Yang- 

 tse-kiang Eiver to be a natural boundary between two primary regions, and his sepa- 

 ration of Malacca from Sumatra and Borneo to form a part of his " hinter-indische 

 Unterabtheilung", which thus consists of the whole of the Indo-Chinese Peninsala down 

 to the very southern extremity of Malacca ! 

 * VerLandl. d. K.-K. Zool.-Bot. Gesells. in Wien, xsv. Bd., p. 57, 1875. 



