44 ON THE GEOGRAPHY OF ANIMALS. 



Europe ; while to the south it is connected to the Aus- 

 traUan division hy the islands of Papua or New Guinea, 

 New Caledonia, and New Ireland. 



(60.) Aregion sovast in extent, and so diversified in its 

 temperature and productions, may naturally he supposed 

 to he extremely difficult to he characterised, as a whole, 

 with precision: nor is this, indeed, necessary to our present 

 purpose. It will be a sufficient sanction to the justness of 

 considering it as a peculiar division of zoological geogra- 

 phy, if, upon attentively comparing its animals with those 

 of Europe and Africa, we discover differences so strongly 

 marked as to separate i\ from both. If, however, any 

 particular feature in Asiatic zoology be selected as pe- 

 culiarly striking, it would undoubtedly be the number 

 and importance of those domestic animals which it has 

 furnished to the civilised world ; and which are not only 

 useful and necessary to the inhabitants of the older con- 

 tinents, but even more so to those of America and Austra . 

 lia, where there does not appear to have been other spe- 

 cies equally destined to supply the wants, or abridge the 

 labours, of civilised man. When it is considered that 

 the horse is generally supposed to have originally been 

 a native of the Tartarian deserts ; that the domestication 

 of oxen is conjectured first to have taken place in West- 

 ern Asia, by the Caucasian nations ; that all the breeds 

 of our domestic fowl have unquestionably sprung from 

 southern Asia, which is likewise the native region of 

 the peacock; we must admit the justness of the above 

 remark. 



(61.) The Asiatic range may be divided into three 

 sections, or sub-provinces, indicated both by their geo- 

 graphic peculiarities, and the nature of their respective 

 animals. The first commences from the polar regions, 

 and includes the whole of Asiatic Russia : its natural 

 boundaries to the west are the Ural mountains ; and to 

 the south, the lofty Altain chain — the cradle, as it has 

 been termed, of the Mongolian race. The second in- 

 cludes the little known empires of China and Japan, 

 with Thibet, the Tartarian provinces bordering Persia, 



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