54 
Animal Geography. 
[January, 
accordance among authors who have certainly given this 
important subject their careful attention. No one indeed 
has proposed to unite Australia with any of the other pri- 
mary zoological regions, or to dissever from it the eastern 
portion of the Malay Archipelago — the Austro-Malayan re- 
gion of Mr. Wallace.* But short of this it would almost 
seem as if zoo-geographers had been “ ringing the changes ” 
on the possible number of arrangements. Even with the 
boldly isolated Australian region strange liberties have been 
taken : thus while one classifier would confer upon New 
Zealand the rank of a coequal primary region, another re- 
gards it as fit for amalgamation with South Australia, in 
contradistinction to the northern or tropical half of that 
continent. 
As to most of these modifications of Dr. Sclater’s original 
views, we think that Mr. Wallace is fully justified in their 
rejection. The fusion of South with North America, or 
that of the latter with the West Indies, Chili, Patagonia, 
Central America, Europe, and Asia, seems to us to involve 
the negleCt of important distinctions and of plain affinities, 
and to offer great practical inconvenience. Mr. Wallace well 
remarks — “ There can be little use in the knowledge that a 
group of animals is foundin the Boreal region, if their habitat 
might still be either Patagonia, the West Indies, or Japan.” 
Concerning the proposal of Prof. Huxley — latterly adopted 
by Dr. Sclater — to consider New Zealand as a primary pro- 
vince, our author reminds us that “ it is absolutely without 
indigenous Mammalia, and very poor in all forms of life, 
and therefore by no means prominent or important enough 
to form a primary region of the earth.” 
“ It may be as well here to notice what appears to be a 
serious objection to making New Zealand, or any similar 
isolated district, one of the great zoological regions, com- 
parable to South America, Australia, or Ethiopia, which is 
that its claims to such distinction rest on grounds that are 
liable to fail. It is because New Zealand, in addition to its 
negative merits, possesses three families of birds (Aptery- 
gidae living, Dinornithidae and Palapterygidae extinCt), and a 
peculiar lizard-like reptile, Hatteria, which has to be classed 
in a distinct order, Rhyncocephalina, that the rank of a 
region is claimed for it. But supposing, what is not at all 
improbable, that other Rhyncocephalina should be discovered 
* As an additional proof of the close connection between New Guinea and 
Australia we may mention that M. Bruyn, of Ternate, has obtained a new 
species of Echidna from the mountains of Arfak, in the former island. The 
only two allied species hitherto known are confined to Australia proper. 
