i96 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
Sahara; and 5. Australian or Malay, including not only Aus- 
tralia, but also the Indian Archipelago south of Java, New 
Guinea, and Polynesia. 
Dr. Prichard, in the fourth edition of his “ Reseaches into 
the Physical History of Mankind,” published in 1851, proposed 
nine zoological provinces, some of which he subdivided. His 
remarks are rather confused, but the following seem to be his 
divisions :—1. Arctic America, Europe and Asia. 2. Temperate 
North America, Europe and Asia. 3. Intertropical and south 
temperate America. 4. Intertropical and south temperate 
Africa. 5. Tropical Asia and India. 6. Indian Archipelago. 
7. Polynesia, including New Guinea and New Zealand. 8. 
Australia. 9. The southern extremities of America and Africa.* 
Dr. Sclater, in 1857, from a study of the distribution of birds, 
divided the land into six regions, which were afterwards shewn 
by Dr. Gunther to hold good for reptiles, and by Mr. Wallace to 
hold good for mammals. These regions are—1. Palearctic 
Region, comprising Europe, North Africa to the Sahara, and all 
Asia, except South Arabia, India, and South China. 2, A¢thio- 
pian Region, including Africa south of the Sahara and South 
Arabia. 3. /udian or Oriental Region, including India, South 
China, and the Indian Archipelago as far south as Borneo and 
Java. 4. Australian Region, including Australia, the Indian 
Archipelago from Celebes and Lombok, New Guinea, Polynesia, 
and New Zealand. 5. WVeotropical Region, comprising South 
America, the West Indies, and tropical North America. 6, 
Nearctic Region, comprising all extra-tropical North America. 
In 1866 Mr Andrew Murray proposed to unite together the 
Palearctic and Nearctic Regions, and also the Ethiopian and 
Indian Regions, thus reducing them to four. In 1868 Professor 
Huxley pointed out that the Pal arctic, Nearctic, Ethiopian, and 
Indian Regions were closely related to each other, and proposed 
that they should be united into an Arctogzea; and also that New 
Zealand should be detached from the Australian region on — 
account of its great peculiarities, its extreme isolation, and its 
being the remains of a more extensive land, and should be made 
into a Novozelanian region ; this latter suggestion being adopted 
by Dr. Sclater in 1874. Mr. Wallace, however, in his valuable 
“Geographical Distribution of Animals,” published in 1876, 
rejects all these innovations, and goes back to Dr. Sclater’s 
original six regions as the most natural and useful. 
It appears, therefore, that naturalists agree pretty well as to- 
where the boundary line between districts should be drawn, so 
far as mammalia, birds, and reptiles are concerned, but they 
differ as to how these districts should be grouped into regions 
and sub-regions. oe 
In his “ Introduction to the Study of Fishes,” published in 
1880, Dr. Gunther arrives at the conclusion that although Dr. 
Sclater’s regions do very well for the fresh-water fishes, their dis-— 
* These appear to be already included in 3 and 4. 
