68 
DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS. 
[rART I. 
Australia by an arbitrary east and west line, and a union of the 
northern two-thirds with New Guinea, the southern third with 
New Zealand. Hardly less unnatural is the supposed equiva- 
lence of South Africa (the African temperate realm) to all 
tropical Africa and Asia, including Madagascar (the Indo- 
African tropical realm). South Africa has, it is true, some 
striking peculiarities ; but they are absolutely unimportant as 
compared with the great and radical differences between tropical 
Africa and tropical Asia. On these examples we may fairly 
rest our rejection of Mr. Allen’s scheme. 
We must however say a few words on the zoo-geographical 
nomenclature proposed in the same paper, which seems also 
very objectionable. The following terms are proposed : realm , 
region, 'province, district , fauna and flora; the first being the 
highest, the last the lowest and smallest sub-division. Con- 
sidering that most of these terms have been used in very different 
senses already, and that no means of settling their equivalence 
in different parts of the globe has been even suggested, such a 
complex system must lead to endless confusion. Until the 
whole subject is far better known and its first principles agreed 
upon, the simpler and the fewer the terms employed the better ; 
and as “ region ” was employed for the primary divisions by 
Air. Sclater, eighteen years ago, and again by Air. Andrew 
Murray, in his Geographical Distribution of Mammals ; nothing 
but obscurity can result from each writer using some new, and 
doubtfully better, term. For the sub-divisions of the regions 
no advantage is gained by the use of a distinct term—" pro- 
vince” — which has been used (by Swainson) for the primary 
divisions, and which does not itself tell you what rank it holds ; 
whereas the term “ sub-region ” speaks for itself as being un- 
mistakably next in subordination to region, and this clearness of 
meaning gives it the preference over any independent term. 
As to minor named sub-divisions, they seem at present uncalled 
for; and till the greater divisions are themselves generally 
agreed on, it seems better to adopt no technical names for what 
must, for a long time to come, be indeterminate. 
Docs the Arctic Fauna characterize an independent Region . — 
