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Show 1868.] PROF. HUXLEY ON THE ALECTOROMORPHAE. 315 dinal, and divides a north world from a south world, we must speak of Arctogeea and Notogcea rather than of Neogaea and Palaeogaea as the primary distributional areae. The secondary divisions, or geographical provinces, proposed by Dr. Sclater, answer, in great measure, to those which are suggested by the distribution of the Alectoromorphce-except that, in common with many other naturalists, I think it would be convenient to recognize a circumpolar province, as distinct from the Nearctic and Palaearctic regions. It is characterized, so far as the Alectoromorphce are concerned, by the Tetraonince. The temperate and warmer parts of the Nearctic province are marked by the Odontophorince and the Meleagridee. The ^Ethiopian province is distinguished by Numididee; the Indian by the abundance of Phasianidee; while the temperate and warmer parts of the Palaearctic region can hardlv be said to have any great distinctive features apart from the conterminous Indian, Ethiopian, and circumpolar provinces. No one can doubt the distributional importance and distinctness of Dr. Sclater's " Neotropical" province-though I confess I should prefer some such name as "Austro-Columbia" for it, so much of this province lying outside the tropics. Not only is this province the exclusive home of the Cracidee, but a greater number of morphologically distinct groups of birds than can be found anywhere else are completely, or almost, confined to it. These are the Rheidee, Psophidee, Tinamomorphee, Ramphastidee, Heteromorphce, Cathartidee, Palamedidee, Trochilidee. Dicholophidce, Parrakeets, Short-tailed Parrots, and the Pair-toed Coccygomorphce (such as Cuckoos and Woodpeckers) abound in it. No less exclusively characteristeric, positively, are the .Mammalian groups of Llamas and Peccaries among the Artiodactyla, of Sloths and Armadillos among the Edentata, of Platyrhine and Arctopithe-cine Primates, of Opossums (with Cheironectes) among Marsupialia; while, negatively, the absence of Insectivora*, of Viverridce, of all other Ungulata except Cervidee, of all other Marsupialia, is not less remarkable. Again, I cannot but think that the "Australian, or Eastern Palaeotropical," province is certainly as distinct from the Old World proper as South America isf, if we consider both its Birds and its Mammals-and that no fitting idea of its importance is given by * Solenodon is confined to two West-Indian islands-Cuba and Haiti; Bassaris is but a doubtful Viverrine, and gets no further south than Mexico. t " Quelles que soient du reste les destinees ulterieures du principe que je viens d'emettre relativement au mode a suivre pour la determination des faunes speciales, il est impossible de nier que, sous ce point de vue, 1'Amerique meri-dionale, d'une part, la Nouvelle Hollande, d'autre part, doivent etre separees du reste du m o n d e . " - P U C H E R A N , Sur les indications que peut fournir la Zoologie. Sec. (Revue et Magasin de Zoologie, 1865, p. 162). |
