EXPLORATIONS IN CAPE REGION. 735 



Nevertheless, a few more words of explanation may be 

 necessary. The question has often been asked why have 

 not the energies of the Academy been more or exclu- 

 sively devoted to home work. The question is appro- 

 priate, but the answer is not a difficult one. California 

 and its sister States are now being rapidly explored, and 

 their fauna and flora are becoming correspondingly well 

 known. With two universities of high standing, with 

 several smaller and sectarian institutions of learning, with 

 a number of private scientific societies, and with a very 

 large number of private collectors and students of natural 

 history, it is thought that the State is well provided for, 

 and that within a very few years all the various groups of 

 animals and plants will be in a zoological sense very well 

 known, if not pretty well exhausted. With Mexico these 

 conditions are entirely different. In the sparsely settled 

 territory of our sister republic naturalists are yet few, 

 and explorations most incomplete. While thus our own 

 country is having its fauna and flora rapidly described, it 

 has become more and more important to know their rela- 

 tions with the large Mexican region. From this region 

 our United States has received a large part of its fauna 

 and flora, tropical and semitropical species, which in course 

 of their immigrations to the north, have been more or less 

 modified, according to the requirements of their new sur- 

 roundings. On the other hand, northern species have 

 penetrated into Mexico, and undergone more or less 

 changes there. In other words, the interchange of faunas 

 and floras which has been carried on since the ice age 

 between the two countries is one of extreme interest, and 

 the many problems connected with it are well worthy of 

 our greatest energies and studies. 



Mexico of to-day, under a most enlightened govern- 

 ment, is making tremendous strides forward in civ- 



