There has not been the intense struggle 

 for supremacy here which we see in the 

 north temperate and higher regions. 



THE INDIAN REGION 



completes the list. Broadly speak- 

 ing, this region comprises that part 

 of Asia which lies east of the Indus 

 river south of the Himalaya moun- 

 tains except the eastern half of the drain- 

 age basin of the Yang-tse-kiang river, 

 reaching the coast just south of Shang- 

 hai, including the island of Formosa, the 

 Philippines, Borneo, Java, Sumatra and 

 Ceylon. This is the Oriental Region of 

 Wallace. There are, apparently, but two 

 families of birds peculiar to this region : 

 the bulbuls and the broad-bills ; but there 

 are very many genera and species found 

 nowhere else in the world. The king- 

 crows, sun-birds, swallow-shrikes, argus 

 pheasant, jungle fowl and the well-known 

 peacocks belong here. Very many of 

 the birds of this region are gaudily col- 

 ored and striking in appearance. 



Each of these great regions, except 

 possibly New Zealand, are readily divis- 

 ible into sub-regions, and these again into 

 areas of lesser extent, until each fauna 

 may be assigned its proper place. Thus 

 in the Holarctic Region we recognize the 

 Nearctic, which comprises about all of 

 North America, and a Palearctic sub-re- 

 gion, the outlines of which have already 

 been sketched. Within the Nearctic three 

 minor regions are recognized. The Arc- 

 tic "includes that part of the continent 

 and its adjacent islands north of about 

 the limit of forest vegetation" (Allen). 

 That is, extreme northern and north- 

 western Alaska, sweeping southeasterly 

 through British America to and includ- 

 ing Hudson Bay, northern and north- 

 eastern Labrador and northern New- 

 foundland. The Cold Temperate, which 

 lies next south, begins in the east near 

 Quebec, then sweeps westward past the 

 Great Lakes almost to Winnipeg, thence 

 in a northwesterly direction just west of 



Lake Winnipeg; from there in a more 

 westerly direction to themountains, which 

 it follows even into northei n Mexico as a 

 narrow line; from the west coast at the 

 north end of Vaucouver Island it runs 

 east to the mountains. Maine and Nova 

 Scotia are a part of the Allegheny belt 

 which reaches to Alabama. Below this 

 southern limit of the Cold Temperate lies 

 the Warm Temperate, extending almost 

 to Central America. But this is again 

 subdivided into an eastern Humid Prov- 

 ince which ends at the Plains, and a west- 

 ern Arid Province. These are again 

 subdivided into an Appalachian Sub- 

 province and an Austroriparian Sub- 

 province for the Humid Province, and a 

 Sonoran and Campestrian Subprovince 

 for the Arid Province. But the boun- 

 daries of these minor subdivisions are not 

 yet definitely settled, nor are the charac- 

 teristic species in each finally decided up- 

 on, so it will not be profitable to carry 

 our investigation further «tt this time. 



We learn from this that when we find 

 that one region, be it large or small, is 

 unlike every other region in some par- 

 ticulars of climate or vegetation or tem- 

 perature, or when it is not easily acces- 

 sible from other regions, we may expect 

 to find the animals somewhat different ac- 

 cording to the conditions which prevail. 

 From this it is a clear step to the truth 

 that an animal's environment exerts a 

 considerable influence upon its life and 

 through its life upon its form ; changing 

 the form in some particulars that make 

 it different from all other animals. It is 

 also true of plants. Since, then, there 

 are different physical conditions in every 

 country of any considerable size, these 

 changes in plants and animals are going 

 on now, but so slowly that we are not 

 able to see them. At the end of another 

 thousand years or longer, the species of 

 birds which we now know may be so 

 changed that we should not know them 

 if we could see them. But that need not 

 worry us! Lynds Jones. 



68 



