55 
1 8 77.] Animal Geography. 
in the interior of Australia or in New Guinea, and that 
Apterygidas or Palapterygidse should be found to have inha- 
bited Australia in post-pliocene times (as Dinorthidae have 
already been proved to have done), the claims of New 
Zealand would entirely fail, and it would be universally 
acknowledged to be a part of the great Australian region. 
No such reversal can take place in the other regions, because 
they rest not upon one or two, but upon a large number of 
peculiarities of such a nature that there is no room upon 
the globe for discoveries that can seriously modify them. 
Even if one or two peculiar types like Apterygidse or 
Hatteria should permanently remain characteristic of New 
Zealand alone, we can account for these by the extreme 
isolation of the country and the absence of enemies, which 
have enabled these defenceless birds and reptiles to continue 
their existence, just as the isolation and protection of the 
caverns of Carniola have enabled the Proteus to survive in 
Europe. But supposing that the Proteus was the sole repre- 
sentative of an order of Batrachia, and that two or three 
other equally curious and isolated forms occurred along 
with it, no one would propose that these caverns or the 
district containing them should form one of the primary 
divisions of the earth. Neither can much stress be laid on 
the negative peculiarities of New Zealand, since they are 
found to an almost equal extent in every oceanic island.” 
As regards Prof. Huxley’s tripartite arrangement — Aus- 
tralia, South America, and ArCtogaea — Mr. Wallace urges 
that the comparative importance or equivalence of value of 
two or more zoological provinces is very difficult to determine. 
“ It may be considered from the point of view of speciality 
or isolation, or from that of richness and variety of animal 
forms. In isolation and speciality, determined by what 
they want as well as by what they possess, the Australian 
and Neotropical regions are undoubtedly each comparable 
with the rest of the earth. But in richness and variety of 
forms they are both very much inferior, and are much more 
nearly comparable with the separate regions which com- 
pose it.” 
It might possibly, however, be contended that Mr. Blyth 
is right in claiming for Madagascar and its adjacent islands 
the rank of a primary region, instead of viewing it, with 
Dr. Sclater and Mr. Wallace, as a sub-region of “ Ethiopia.” 
True its extent is very trifling compared with any of the 
other regions, but there are some grounds for regarding it 
as the mere fragment of a former continent. It possesses 
twelve families of terrestrial Mammalia (or only two fewer 
