CHAP. XIII.] 
THE AUSTRALIAN REGION. 
409 
Tasmania, both tropical and temperate, but for the most part 
arid, yet abounding in peculiar forms in all the classes of animals; 
then come the Polynesian Islands, another luxuriant region of 
tropical vegetation, yet excessively poor in most of the higher 
groups of animals as well as in some of the lower ; and lastly, 
we have New Zealand, a pair of temperate forest-clad islands 
far in the southern ocean, with a very limited yet strange and 
almost wholly peculiar fauna. We have now to consider the 
general features and internal relations of the faunas of each of 
these sub-regions, together with any external relations which 
have not been discussed while treating the region as a whole. 
I. Austro-Mcilayan Sub-region. 
The central mass on which almost every part of this sub- 
region is clearly dependent, is the great island of New Guinea, 
inhabited by the Papuan race of mankind ; and this, with the 
surrounding islands, which are separated from it by shallow seas 
and possess its most marked zoological features, are termed Papua, 
A little further away lie the important groups of the Moluccas 
on one side and the Eastern Papuan Islands on the other, which 
possess a fauna mainly derivative from New Guinea, yet wanting 
many of its distinctive types ; and, in the case of the Moluccas 
possessing many groups which are not Australian, but derived 
from the adjacent Oriental region. To the south of these we 
have the Timor group, whose fauna is clearly derivative, from 
Australia, from Java, and from the Moluccas. Lastly comes 
Celebes, whose fauna is most complex and puzzling, and, so far 
as we can judge, not fundamentally derivative from any of the 
surrounding islands. 
Papua , or the New Guinea Gi'oup . — New Guinea is very 
deficient in Mammalia as compared with Australia, though this 
apparent poverty may, in part, depend on our very scanty know- 
ledge. As yet only four of the Australian families of Marsupials 
are known to inhabit it, with nine genera, several of which 
are peculiar. It also possesses a peculiar form of wild pig; 
but as yet no other non-marsupial terrestrial mammal has been 
discovered, except a rat, described by Dr. Gray as Uro?nys 
