354 Louis Agassiz on the Natural , 
fauna, which partakes partly of the Asiatic and partly of the Euro- 
pean zoological character; its most remarkable animal, antelope 
saiga, ranging west as far as Southern Russia. The Japanese and 
Chinese faunz stand to each other in the same relation as Southern 
Europe and Northern Africa, and it remains to be ascertained by fur- 
ther investigations whether the Japanese fauna proper, and a more 
western continental fauna, which might be called the Mandshurian 
or Tongusian fauna. But since it is not my object to describe sepa- 
rately all faunz, but chiefly to call attention to the coincidence 
existing between the natural limitation of the races of man, and 
the geographical range of the zoological provinces, I shall limit 
myself here to some general remarks respecting the Mongolian 
fauna, in order to show that the Asiatic zoological realm differs 
essentially from the European and the American. The most re- 
markable animals of this fauna are the bear of Thibet (Ursus thi- 
betanus), the musk deer (Moschus moschiferus), the tzeiran (Ante- 
lope gutturosa), the Mongolian goat (Capra siberica), the argali 
(Ovis argali), and the yak (Bos grunniens). This is also the home 
of the Bactrian or double-hunched camel, and of the wild horse 
(Equus caballus), the wild ass (Equus onager), and the dtschigetai 
(Equus hemionus). The wide distribution of the musk-deer in the 
Altai and the Himalayan and Chinese Alps, shows the whole Asiatie 
range of the temperate zone to be a most natural zoological realm, 
subdivided into distinct provinces by the greater localization of the 
largest number of its representatives. 
If we now ask what are the nations of men inhabiting those 
regions, we find that they all belong to the so-called Mongolian race, 
the natural limits of which correspond exactly to the range of the 
Japanese, Chinese, Mongolian, and Caspian faunee taken together, 
and that peculiar types, distinct nations of this race, cover respec- 
tively the different faunze of this realm ;—the Japanese inhabiting 
the Japanese zoological province, the Chinese the Chinese province, 
the Mongols the Mongolian province, and the Turks the Caspian 
province; eliminating, of course, the modern establishment of 
Turks in Asia Minor and Iurope. 
The unity of Europe (exclusive of its arctic regions), in connec- 
tion with South-western Asia and Northern Africa, as a distinct 
zoological realm, is established by the range of its mammalia and 
by the limits of the migrations of its birds, as well as by the physi- 
cal features of its whole extent. Thus we find its deer and stag, 
its hare, its squirrel, its wolf and wild cat, its fox and jackal, 
its otter, its weasel and marten, its badger, its bear, its mole, its 
hedgehogs, and a number of bats, either extending over the whole 
realm in Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa, or so linked 
together as to show that in their combination with the birds, reptiles, 
fishes, &c., of the same countries, they constitute a natural zoologi- 
cal association analogous to that of Asia, but essentially different in 
