ch. n] mk huxley's regions. 75 



Zealand and the Pacific islands. This land may be called 

 Ornithogcea. 



Arctogaea is then subdivided into the well known 

 Palaearctic, Ethiopian, Indian and Nearctic regions. But 

 it is pointed out that these sections are not equal to the 

 remaining and undivided Antarctogaea and Dendrogaea. 

 The fourth section, Ornithogaea, is necessarily left out of 

 consideration altogether, as it contains no Mammals (with 

 a trifling exception or two). A better name for this 

 division of the earth's surface is perhaps that suggested 

 by Prof. Lankester, viz. Atheriogaea, since it expresses the 

 cardinal fact in its zoogeography : which is not the posses- 

 sion of a rich bird fauna but the absence of an indigenous 

 Mammal fauna. 



Mr Huxley's regions. 



A study of the distribution of the Alectoromorpha led 

 Prof. Huxley to suggest a different division of the world 

 into regions. 



The Peristeropodes (the Cracidae and Megapodidae) are 

 confined to a range of country which includes continental 

 Australia and some of the islands to the north, along with 

 South and Central America; this tract of the earth's 

 surface he termed Notogaea, the part lying to the north 

 being called Arctogaea. Arctogaea is tenanted by the 

 following families of birds which are at most but poorly 

 represented to the south of the line already mentioned : — 

 the Pteroclidae, Otidiae, Gruidae, Vulturidae, Upupidae and 

 Bucerotidae. This area is almost coincident with the 

 range of the Insectivora, and it is the head-quarters of the 



