ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT. lv 
I have elsewhere * stated at length the reasons which lead me to 
recognize four primary distributional provinces for the terrestrial 
Vertebrata in the present world, namely,—first, the Novozelanian, 
or New-Zealand province; secondly, the Australian province, in- 
cluding Australia, Tasmania, and the Negrito Islands; thirdly, 
Austro-Columbia, or South America plus North America as far as 
Mexico ; and fourthly, the rest of the world, or Arctogea, in which 
province America north of Mexico constitutes one subprovince, 
Africa south of the Sahara a second, Hindostan a third, and the 
remainder of the Old World a fourth. 
Now the truth which Mr. Darwin perceived and promulgated as 
“the law of the succession of types” is, that in all these pro- 
vinces the animals found in Pliocene or later deposits are closely 
affined to those which now inhabit the same provinces; and that, 
conversely, the forms characteristic of other provinces are absent. 
North and South America, perhaps, present one or two exceptions to 
the last rule, but they are readily susceptible of explanation. Thus, 
in Australia, the later Tertiary mammals are marsupials (possibly 
with exception of the Dog and a Rodent or two, as at present). In 
Austro-Columbia the later Tertiary fauna exhibits numerous and 
varied forms of Platyrrhine Apes, Rodents, Cats, Dogs, Stags, Hden- 
tata, and Opossums; but, as at present, no Catarrhine Apes, no 
Lemurs, no Jnsectivora, Oxen, Antelopes, Rhinoceroses, or Didelphia 
other than Opossums. And in the wide-spread Arctogeeal province, 
the Pliocene and later mammals belong to the same groups as those 
which now exist in the province. The law of succession of types, 
therefore, holds good for the present epoch as compared with its pre- 
decessor. Does it equally well apply to the Pliocene fauna when 
we compare it with that of the Mioceneepoch? By great good for- 
tune an extensive mammalian fauna of this epoch has now become 
known, in four very distant portions of the Arctogzeal province which 
do not differ greatly in latitude. Thus Falconer and Cautley have 
made known the fauna of the sub-Himalayas and the Perim Islands ; 
Gaudry that of Attica; many observers that of Central Kurope and 
France; and Leidy that of Nebraska, on the eastern flank of the Rocky 
Mountains. The results are very striking. The total Miocene fauna 
comprises many genera and species of Catarrhine Apes, of Bats, of 
Insectivora, of Arctogeal types of Rodentia, of Proboscidea, of 
equine, rhinocerotic, and tapirine quadrupeds, of cameline, bovine, 
antilopine, cervine, and traguline Ruminants, of Pigs and Hippo- 
potamuses, of Viverride and Hyenide among other Carnwora, 
with Hdentata allied to the Arctogeal Orycteropus and Manis, 
and not to the Austro-Columbian Edentates. The only type pre- 
sent in the Miocene, but absent in the existing fauna of Eastern 
Arctogeea is that of the Didelphide, which, however, remains in 
North America. 
But it is very remarkable that while the Miocene fauna of the 
Arctogzal province, as a whole, is of the same character as the ex- 
“On the Classification and Distribution of the Alectoromorphe,” Pro- 
ceedings of the Zoological Society, 1868. 
