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species, not found in South India, reappear in the Malayan 
peninsula and islands. The spread of Indian forms into Europe 
has been much checked by the position of the mountain ranges. 
Where these are more open, as along the coast of China and 
Japan, we find Indian forms extending much further north, and 
mingling with those which really belong to the Palsearctic 
Region. 
One of the most striking features in the Australian Region 
in recent times was the abundance of large wingless birds, now 
mostly extinct. Traditions, more or less authentic, relating to 
the great birds of the remote islands, are common in Oriental 
writers, who referred to them under the names of Rukh, See- 
murgh, Anka, &c. The rukh was said by Middle Age writers 
to be found in Madagascar (doubtless referring to the AZpyornis 
or its egg) ; but the Arabian writers always give the rukh the 
habits of an eagle or a vulture. The Arabs, we know, extended 
their voyages at least as far as Madagascar and the Aru 
Islands, and there is no improbability in their having also 
visited New Zealand, where I believe that remains of a gigantic 
bird of prey have recently been met with. The Arabs, of 
course, were well acquainted with the ostrich, now the largest 
living bird ; hence, nothing but the great extinct birds could 
have given rise to the stories of the rukh. The Persians, less 
acquainted with these distant countries than the Arabs, made a 
mythological bird of the Seemurgh, but there is little incredible 
in the Arabian accounts of the rukh, except its gigantic 
size. The Greek or German Griffin may have had a similar 
origin.* 
The Neotropical Region presents a great contrast to Africa, 
the other southern continent, for instead of a preponderance of 
large mammalia, we have here an enormous abundance of some 
of the smaller forms of life ; in some groups, as, for instance 
butterflies, more than half of all the known species come from 
Tropical America. 
The Nearctic Region, though somewhat poor in special forms 
as compared with the Palsearctic, to which its affinities are so 
close that it could scarcely be separated as a distinct region, if 
we confined ourselves to isolated groups, yet possesses as many 
large mammalia as South America. The fauna of both North 
and South America was formerly much richer than at present ; 
but the Glacial Period was as destructive in North America as 
in Europe. What caused the destruction of the large mammalia 
* The Rukh, or Roc, as in our old translation of the 11 Arabian Nights,” 
is only alluded to, so far as we remember, in connection with its egg; the 
egg was probably that of ALpyornis, and the bird manufactured to suit 
it. — Ed. 
