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Show 46 ISLAND LIFE. (PART 1. Insect1. vora, C arm.v ora, nor Ungulata.' while e.v en the rodents a. rc only represen t e d b Y a few small rats and miCe. Ihn the· PaNcr fic Islands mammals are altogether absent (except per a.~s In ow Zealand), but in the :Moluccas and other islands.bordermg on the Oriental region the higher ma~m~ls are represented by a few d eer, ci· ve t s, and pigs , thou<Yo h It IS doubtful whether tho two .~1 0rmer may not have been int.r oduced. by man. , as was almo.s t certainly the case with the semi-dom~stlcated dmgo of Australia. The se Peculiarities in the mammaha are so great that ev.e ry naturalist agrees that Australia must be n:ade a separate reg:10n, the only difference of opinion being as to Its extent, som~ thmking that New Zealand should form another separate regwn; L ut this question need not now delay us. In birds Australia is by no means so isolated from the rest of the world, as it contains great numbers of warblers, thrushes, flycatchers, shrikes, crows, and other familiar types of the Eastern Hemisphere; yet a considerable number of the most characteristic Oriental families are absent. Thus there are no vultures, woodpeckers, pheasants, bulbuls, or barbets in the Australian . gion. and the absence of these is almost as marked a feature Ie ' . Th as that of cats, deer, or monkeys, among mammaha. e most conspicuous and characteristic birds of the Australian region are, the piping crows; the honey-suckers. (}fieliphagid re), a fam~ly quite peculiar to the region; the lyre-birds; the great terrestnal kingfishers (Dacelo) ; the great goat-suckers called more-porks in Australia and forming the genus Podargus ; the wonderful abundance of parrots, including such remarkable forms as tho white and the black cockatoos, and the gorgeously coloured brushtongued lories ; the almost equal abundance of fine pigeons more gaily coloured than an~ others on the ~lobe; the strang:~ brush-turkeys and mound-bmlders, the only bn·cls that never s1 upon their eggs, but allow them to be hatched, reptile-like, by the heat of the sand or of fermenting vegetable matter; and lastly, the emus and cassowaries, in which the .wings are far more rudimentary than in the ostriches of Afnca and South · merica. New Guinea and the surrounding islands arc remarkable f..q_r their tree-kangaroos, their bir~s-of-parad~se, ~heir raqu.ettailed k~ngfishers, their great crown-pigeons, thmr cnmson lones, CHAP. III.] ZOOLOGICAL REGIONS. 47 and many other k b . --. - . - su ffi C.i ent to show trhe mda'r .a le birds. . This . bnef outline beinoo- regw. n, we wi. ll nowe Istmctnhes s and I.s olatiOn of the Australian H em1. sp h ere. pass to t e consuleration of the Western Definition and Gh t · · Tl N t . . arac eT~st~c Groups of the Nearctic Region.- le earc Ic reO'Ion com · ll . . ~ pnses a temperate and arctic North Amerwa, lllcludmg GreenlanJ the onl d bt b . . th b d , y ou emg as to 1ts sou . ern oun ary' many nor th ern types penetratm· g m· to tho tropical zone by means of the hiahlands a d 1 · k . . o n vo came pea s of Mexwo a~d Guatemala, while a few which are characteristic of the. tropics extend northward into Texas and California .. There Is, however, considerable evidence showin<Y that on the east coast the Rio Grande del Norte, and on the 5 west a point near~y opposite Cape St. Lucas, form the most natural boundary; but mstead of bemg drawn straight across, the line bends to the south-east as soon as it rises on the flanks of the tableland, ~orming a ~eep loop which extends some distance beyond the City of Mexico, and perhaps ought to be continued along the higher ridges of Guatemala . The N earctic region is so similar to the Palrearctic in position and climate, and the two so closely approach each other at Behring Straits, that we cannot wonder at there bein<Y a certain amount. of similarity between them-a similarity which some naturalists have so far over- estimated as to think that the two regions ought to be united. Let us therefore carefully examine the special zoological features of this region, and see how far it resembles, and how far differs from, the Palrearctic. At first sight the mammalia of North America do not seem to differ much from those of Europe or Northern Asia. There are cats, lynxes, wolves and foxes, weasels, bears, elk and ~ee~, voles, beavers, squirrels, marmots, and hares, all very s~m~lar ~o those o! the Eas~ern Hemisphere, and several hardly distlllgmshable. Even the bison or (( buffalo " of the prairies, once so ~bundant and characteristic, is a close ally of the now alm0..1ot extmct "aurochs" of Lithuania. Here, then, we undoubtedly fi~d a very close resemblance between the two regions, and if th1s w~re all, we should have great difficulty in separating· them. But along with these, we find another set of mammals, not |
