90 PAL.<EARCTIC AND NEAECTIC. [CH. II 



American bison. The grizzly bear, though it has received 

 the specific name of Ursus ferox, is barely distinguishable 

 from the brown bear Ursus arctos of Europe ; there is no 

 doubt at all about the identity of the reindeer, the elk, 

 the glutton and the arctic fox which are common to the 

 Nearctic and the Palsearctic regions. The lynx, wolf, 

 marten, beaver and marmot are forms common to both 

 regions without differences at all or showing differences 

 of the slightest possible kind. All these animals are 

 among the most characteristic of those inhabiting the 

 Palsearctic region. The pouched rats Gricetomys are, as 

 has been recently shown by the leading authority upon 

 this group, Mr Thomas, hardly generically separable from 

 the American Hesperomys. The musk deer, Moschus, and 

 the peculiar bear-like creatures Ailuropus and Ailwrus are 

 not confined to the Palsearctic region ; they are as charac- 

 teristic of it however as they are of the Oriental region, in 

 which they also occur. Even the tiger so pre-eminently, 

 according to popular literature, a denizen of the tropics, 

 may be fairly counted as an inhabitant of the temperate 

 or even subarctic Palsearctic region since it has been met 

 with so far north as the Amur. It is but recently that 

 there were similar resemblances between the fauna of the 

 western part of the Palsearctic region with that of Africa ; 

 the hippopotamus, the Maltese elephants, the lion and 

 various other creatures have only lately become extin- 

 guished in this continent. While the mammoth of Siberia 

 and elsewhere is held by some to be the actual progenitor 

 of the Indian elephant, which is thought by them to hardly 

 rank as a different species but to be rather a variety which 



