34o APPENDIX. 



on the eastern and western slopes of the great Abyssinian 

 plateau, and on the Mozambique coast from Zanzibar to 

 Sofala. The whole of this great district has one general 

 zoological character. Many species range from Senegal 

 to Abyssinia ; others from Abyssinia to the Zambesi ; and 

 a few, as Mungos fasciatus and Phacochcerus ^Ethiopiais (to 

 which great numbers of species of insects may be added), 

 range over the entire sub-region." Various species of 

 quadrupeds and birds are mentioned, which are found in 

 Gambia, Abyssinia, and South-east Africa, but not in 

 the West African sub-region ; and yet Mr. Wallace adds, 

 " Although this sub-region is so extensive and so gener- 

 ally uniform in physical features, it is by far the least 

 peculiar part of Africa. It possesses, of course, all those 

 widespread Ethiopian types which inhabit every part of 

 the region ; but it has hardly any special features of its 

 own. The few genera which are peculiar to it have gener- 

 ally a limited range, and for the most part belong either 

 to the isolated mountain-plateau of Abyssinia, which is 

 almost as much Polar-Arctic as Ethiopian, or to the woody 

 districts of Mozambique, where the fauna has more of a 

 West or South African character." Surely these circum- 

 stances, if correctly stated, together with the fact connected 

 with the existence of the Great Sahara desert, extending 

 many hundred miles in width across Africa, lead " to the 

 conclusion that the division of Africa south of the tropic 

 of Cancer into three principal areas is unnatural, and that, 

 with the exception of the necessary consequence of greater 

 life-action within the tropics, there is so much uniformity 

 in the animal productions of Africa as to render it (with 

 our present knowledge at least) undesirable to cut up the 

 continent into these sub-regions. 



Order LEPIDOPTERA. 



The Lepidopterous insects (butterflies and moths) especially- 

 attracted much of Mr. Oates's attention ; and of the day-flying 

 species (Rhopalocera) he collected seventy-three different kinds, of 

 which nineteen 1 appear to be previously undescribed. As they form 



1 [When the above was written for the first edition, one of this number (JOallosune Buxtoni) 

 had, unknown to Professor Westwood, been already described under the same name by Mr. 



