112 WEST INDIES. [CH. II 



the most important of these is the mountain Tapir 

 Elasmognaihus ; the Bassaris, a raccoon-like animal for- 

 merly and wrongly assigned to the Viverridse, is Nearctic 

 as well as central American. The only other genus of 

 Mammalia which is really confined to the sub-region 

 besides the Tapir is a genus of mice, Myxomys. As with 

 the Mammalia so with the birds this sub-region is the 

 common meeting ground of the Nearctic and Neotropical 

 fauna, with a distinct bent towards the latter. Mr 

 Wallace states that there are in all 37 genera of land 

 birds confined to it, all of which are of common Nearctic 

 or Neotropical families. 



IV. The West-Indian sub-region. This sub-region 

 consists of the islands of the West Indies, and bears a 

 some'what analogous relation to the continent of South 

 America that the island of Madagascar does to that of 

 Africa. As far as concerns Mammals it is largely marked 

 by negative characters ; there are no Edentates, monkeys 

 or Carnivora; but the two older (?) groups of mammals, 

 Rodents and Insectivora, are represented by peculiar types. 

 The latter is represented by the genus Solenodon, which 

 belongs to the family Centetidse, elsewhere only found in 

 Madagascar. The Rodent Capromys is the most peculiar 

 representative of its order. The birds are also remarkable ; 

 the genus Todus, which the late Mr Forbes elevated to a 

 group equivalent to the rest of the Picarian birds, is 

 found here and here only. It is widely spread in the 

 islands and has peculiar forms in many of them. The 

 other birds are not so remarkable ; jbey are characteris- 

 tically neotropical, belonging to such families as Trochilidse 



