6o 
Animal Geography. 
[January, 
form of a crescent along the Gulf of Guinea, having its 
northern limits at the River Gambia ; extending eastwards 
to the head-waters of the Nile and the mountains forming 
the western boundary of the great lakes of Central Africa, 
and reaching southwards “ to that high but marshy forest 
country in which Livingstone was travelling at the time of 
his death.” Its extreme southern limit may be about n° S. 
latitude. The author tells us in a footnote that Dr. Schwein- 
furth found this region very sharply defined in 4J 0 N. lat. 
and 28J 0 E. long. A sudden change occurs here in the cha- 
racter of the vegetation, and the chimpanzee and the West- 
African grey parrot first make their appearance. The 
South-African sub-region, which Mr. Wallace pronounces 
“ the most peculiar and interesting part of Africa,” occupies 
the extreme south of the continent, as far as the Kalahari 
Desert and the Limpopo River. The more typical portion 
of the region scarcely extends beyond the boundaries of the 
Cape Colony and Port Natal. 
There is evidently much to be done before the fauna of 
Africa can be mapped out with even approximate exactness. 
Possibly some of its variations may be considered cases of 
“ station ” rather than of “ habitat.” The western district 
is a luxuriant forest, whilst the eastern is to a great extent 
elevated table-land, with a vegetation of high grasses, thorny 
scrub, and here and there patches of forest. It is very in- 
telligible that the animal population of two such districts 
should show a well-marked difference. We need not won- 
der, therefore, that the forests of Mozambique should possess 
a fauna more western in its character, and that the Ethio- 
pian affinities of the Indo-Malayan sub-region should point 
more to Western than to Eastern Africa. 
The PalsearCtic region, lastly, is divided into the following 
four sub-regions : — the European, comprising all the land 
north of the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Balkan, the Black Sea, 
and the Caucasus, and west of the valley of the Irish and 
the Caspian, and including the British Islands, “ whose 
animal productions are so uniformly identical with conti- 
nental species as to require no special notice.” The Medi- 
terranean sub-region includes Spain, Italy, Turkey (European 
and Asiatic), Persia and Affghanistan up to the banks of the 
Indus, Northern Arabia, Egypt to the second cataraCt of the 
Nile, Northern Africa so as to include the extra-tropical 
portion of the Sahara and the Azores, Madeiras, Canaries, 
and even the Cape Verde Islands. It may at first sight 
seem strange that the northern and southern shores of a 
deep sea like the Mediterranean should belong to the same 
