6 Mr Alfred R. Wallace on some Anomalies 



forms. It will, I think, be found that the facts have here 

 been somewhat hastily assumed, and that the mammalia 

 do not differ very much in this respect from other classes, 

 and in no degree invalidate the position that North Africa 

 belongs to the Palsearctic region. Leaving out domesticated 

 animals, I have drawn up a list of the genera of Algerian 

 mammals (from Captain Loche's Catalogue), and have 

 divided the species, so as to show how far they correspond 

 with those of the Palasarctic or other regions. 



From an examination of this table, it will be seen that 

 thirty-three of the Algerian mammals are absolutely identi- 

 cal with European or West Asian species, fourteen more 

 are representative species of European genera, and ten be- 

 long to West Asian and Siberian (and therefore Palsearctic) 

 genera, giving a total of fifty-seven species and about twenty- 

 eight genera, as the measure of Pala^arctic affinity. Now. to 

 balance this, what have we to indicate an Ethiopian fauna ? 

 The most important, and v/hat have probably been most 

 relied on as giving an extra-European character to the coun- 

 try, are the four large felines, — the lion, the leopard, the 

 serval, and the hunting-leopard, — but as these all range the 

 wdiole of Africa, from the Cape to the Mediterranean, and 

 may very probably have crossed the desert in the tracts of 

 caravans, they cannot be held to have much weight on the 

 present question. Then there is the solitary monkey ; but 

 as that actually inhabits Europe, we need hardly have 

 included it among the representatives of Ethiopian groups, 

 except to give all the facts that can be fairly claimed on 

 that side. The antelope is a desert-haunting species, and 

 therefore may be looked upon as a straggler on the northern 

 side of the Sahara ; and, besides these, we have represen - 

 tatives of two really African genera (Macroscelides and 

 Zorilla), giving a total of only eight species as the mea- 

 sure of Ethiopian affinity. The remaining species, seven in 

 number, are true desert-haunters, roaming over North 

 Africa, Egypt, and Arabia, into the Indian deserts, and have 

 scarcely any more right to be considered as belonging to 

 one region than another, since they inhabit the district 

 which forms the boundary and debateable land of the 

 Ethiopian, Indian, and Paleearctic regions. 



