56 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTEIBUTION. 



India south of the Himalaya, Farther India, Southern Chma, Suma- 

 tra, Java, Bali, Borneo, and the Philippines. 4. Australian, com- 

 prising the continent of Australia, with Papua or New Guinea, 

 Celebes, Lombok, and the numerous oceanic islands of the Pacific. 



5. The Nearctic, which embraces Greenland, and the greater por- 

 tion of the continent of North America (excluding Mexico) ; and, 



6. The Neotropical, corresponding to the continent of South Amer- 

 ica, with Central America, the West Indies, and the greater por- 

 tion of Mexico. A seventh region has been established by some 

 authors to receive New Zealand ; but there would seem not to be 

 sufficient reasons for isolating this island, or group of islands, from 

 the Australian region. 



While the regions here designated are to a great extent clearly 

 defined by their zoological characters, it would, nevertheless, ap- 

 pear more in consonance with actual facts to depart somewhat 

 from their generally recognised limitations. Thus, the Palaearctic 

 and Nearctic tracts, in the absence of both positive and negative 

 faunal characters of sufficient importance to sepai'ate them from 

 each other, are indisputably linked together, and should constitute 

 but a single region (the Holarctic). On the other hand, the scat- 

 tered island groups of the Pacific, which have been united with the 

 Australian realm, may with sufficient reason be constituted into an 

 independent region of their own ; at any rate, they appear to bear 

 no special relationship with the Australian region, any more than 

 with the Oriental. Again, it seems advisable to separate from what 

 has hitherto been known as the Palsearctie region the tract that is 

 comprised within the "Mediterranean sub-region" — i. e., the pen- 

 insular portion of Southern Europe, North Africa, and, in Asia, Asia 

 Minor, Persia, Afghanistan, Beloochistan, and the northern half of 

 Arabia — and to consider it by reason of its faunal association as a 

 "connecting " or intermediate region between the Holarctic, Ethio- 

 pian, and Oriental. A similar, although not yet clearly defined, 

 intermediate region, comprising in a general way Lower California, 

 the province of Sonora in Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts 

 of Texas, Nevada, and California, with probably also the extremity 

 of the peninsula of Florida, connects the western division of the 

 Holarctic realm with the Neotropical; and in the Eastern Hemi- 

 sphere, the Austro-Malaysian islands lying to the east of Bali and 

 Borneo, as far as, and inclusive of, the Solomon Islands, form a 



