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PROF. J. LOGAN LOBLEY, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., ON 
its origin is so extensive, that it is necessary for me to limit 
myself in this paper to the vertebrate terrestrial fauna, that is, 
to the mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians, and even with 
this limitation it will be requisite to omit details and confine 
myself to a general statement of the leading features of the 
subject and the conclusions to which they point. 
So much zoological research and so much investigation of 
zoological distribution has been carried out during the last half 
century, and so voluminous has been the literature on these 
subjects that I venture to think the present time is not in- 
appropriate for such a review as is here attempted. The works 
of Alfred Bussell Wallace, Dr. Sclater, Andrew Murray, 
Lydekker, Scharff, the American palaeontologists, Amhegino, 
Leidy, Cope, Marsh, Ortmann and Scott, the German authors 
Suess and Zeitell, and other authorities, contain such an 
abundance of material that they give to conclusions based thereon 
a character of approximate finality that could not be claimed 
for earlier generalisations. 
Conspectus of the American Fauna. 
When the fauna of America is looked at as a whole some 
striking features will be noted. Firstly, that not only is every 
one of the greater divisions of the animal kingdom, the sub- 
kingdoms and the classes, to use the simple old nomenclature, 
represented in the New World, but, with few exceptions, the 
orders also, for of the twenty-nine orders of living terrestrial 
vertebrata only four are wanting, and one of these, Proboscidia, 
was represented in quaternary times. And while this is so 
there is but one order peculiar to America, and this order is 
represented by only one species, the gipsy bird of Eastern 
Brazil, Ojristhocomus cristatus. 
This conspicuous general correspondence between the 
animals of the western and eastern hemispheres indicates the 
essential oneness of the animal life of the globe, and its 
common origin, and at once suggests the former existence of 
land connections where now there are separating seas. 
Although this oneness or unity is the most commanding 
feature presented by a comprehensive view of the living 
fauna of America, there are diversities from the fauna of 
the Old World of no little interest and importance. 
We are struck by the fact that the most conspicuous and 
abundant mammals of Europe, Asia and Africa, are entirely 
