34 
ISLAND LIFE. 
[part I. 
latitude as Germany. We find that there are forty-four ter- 
restrial species (omitting the bats, the seals, and other marine 
animals), and of these no less than twenty-six are identical with 
European species, and twelve or thirteen more are closely allied 
representatives, leaving only five or six which are peculiarly 
Asiatic. We can hardly have a more convincing proof of the 
essential oneness of the mammalia of Europe and Northern 
Asia. 
In Northern Africa we do not find so many European species 
(though even here they are very numerous) because a con- 
siderable number of West Asiatic and desert forms occur. 
Having, however, shown that Europe and Western Asia have 
almost identical animals, we may treat all these as really 
European, and we shall then be able to compare the quadrupeds 
of North Africa with those of Europe and West Asia. Taking 
those of Algeria as the best known, we find that there are 
thirty-three species identical with those of Europe and West 
Asia, while tw*enty-four more, though distinct, are closely allied, 
belonging to the same genera; thus making a total of fifty- 
seven of European type. On the other hand, we have seven 
species which are either identical with species of tropical Africa 
or allied to them, and six more which are especially characteristic 
of the African and Asiatic deserts which form a kind of neutral 
zone between the temperate and tropical regions. If now we 
consider that Algeria and the adjacent countries bordering the 
Mediterranean form part of Africa, while they are separated from 
Europe by a wide sea and are only connected with Asia by a 
narrow isthmus, we cannot but feel surprised at the wonderful 
preponderance of the European and West Asiatic elements* in 
the mammalia which inhabit the district. 
The Range of British Birds . — As it is very important that no 
doubt should exist as to the limits of the zoological region of 
which Europe forms a part, we will now examine the birds, in 
order to see how far they agree in their distribution with the 
mammalia. Of late years great attention has been paid to the 
distribution of European and Asiatic birds, many ornithologists 
having travelled in North Africa, in Palestine, in Asia Minor, in 
Persia, in Siberia, in Mongolia, and in China ; so that we are now 
