550 Classification of Animals. 
Latreille, and Dr Pritchard, to all of which he shows there are many 
and insuperable objections, though he assigns, and we think deserv- 
edly, the merit of the nearest approach to a correct theory of ani- 
mal distribution, to the last named writer, as it is founded upon 
the Natural Geography of the Earth. His own hypothesis he pre- 
faces with the following observations : " Since, then, there is as 
marked a distinction between animals of the great Continents as 
there is between the races of mankind, by whom they are inhabited, 
it remains to be considered whether the general distribution of 
both are not in unison, whether their divine Creator has not, by cer- 
tain laws incomprehensible to human understanding, regulated the 
distribution of man and animals upon the same plan? These questions 
lead us to the following propositions, 1. That the countries peopled 
by the five recorded varieties of the human species, are likewise in- 
habited by different races of animals, blending into each other at 
their confines. 2. That these regions are the true zoological divi- 
sions of the earth. 3. That this progression of animal forms is in 
unison with the first great law of natural arrangement, viz, the gra- 
dual amalgamation of the parts and the circularity of the whole." 
Assuming, therefore, in accordance with the most distinguished 
physiologists, that the typical or representative varieties of man are 
five, viz. the European or Caucasian j 2. the Asiatic or Mongolian ; 
3. the American ; 4. the Ethiopian or African ; 5. the Australian or 
Malay, the respective divisions of the earth inhabited by them will 
form the five zoological provinces." Their precise limits he does not 
pretend accurately to define, as an amalgamation or blending in 
of their contents must necessarily take place upon the confines of 
each, but the following he considers as a near approximation to the 
truth. " 1. the European or Caucasian range he supposes to include 
the whole of Europe, properly so called, with part of Asia Minor 
and the shores of the Mediterranean. 2. The Asiatic range, com- 
prehending the whole of Asia east of the Ural Mountains. 3. The 
American range united to Europe and Asia at its northern limits ; 
this region comprehends the whole of the New World, but into 
which it blends at the other extremity is not yet ascertained. 
4. In this range he includes the whole of Africa south of the great 
desert ; and the 5th or Australian province embraces the whole of 
Australia proper, together with New Guinea and the neighbouring 
islands, as well as those of the Pacific Ocean. The Arctic regions, 
it will be observed, in this distribution, are not considered as form- 
ing a zoological province, and properly so, as the genera and species 
restricted to them, or which are not found in the temperate parts of 
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