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Show 50 ISLAND LIFE. [rAHT I. exists between the faunas of North America and Europe is of a very distinct nature from that which connects togeth er Western Europe and North-eastern Asia in the bonds of zoological unity. Definition and OharacteTistic G1·oups of the Neot'ropical Region. -The Neotropical region requires very little definition, since it comprises the whole of America south of the N earctic region, with the addition of the Antilles or West Indian Islands. Its zoological peculiarities are almost as marked as those of Australia, which, however, it far exceeds in the extreme richness and variety of all its forms of life. To show. how distinct it is ·from all the other regions of the globe, we need only enumerate some of the best known and more conspicuous of the animal forms which are peculiar to it. Such are, among mammaliathe prehensile-tailed monkeys and the marmosets, the bloodsucking bats, the coati-mundis, the peccaries, the llamas and alpacas, the chinchillas, the agoutis, the sloths, the armadillos, and the ant-eaters ; a series of types more varied, and more distinct from those of the rest of the world than any other continent can boast of. Among birds we have the charming sugarbirds, forming the family Ccerebidre, the immense and wonder · fully varied group of tanagers, the exquisite little manakins, and the gorgeously-coloured chatterers; the host of tree-creepers of the family Dendrocolaptidre, the wonderful toucans, the puffbirds, jacamars, todies and motmots; the marvellous assemblage of four hundred distinct kinds of humming-birds, the gorgeous macaws, the curassows, the trumpeters, and the sun-bitterns. Here again there is no other continent or region that can produce such an assemblage of remarkable and perfectly distinct groups of birds; and no less wonderful is its richness in species, since these fully equal, if they do not surpass, those of the two great tropical regions of the Eastern Hemisphere (the Ethiopian and the Oriental) combined. As an additional indication of the distinctness and isolation of the N eotropical region from all others, and especially from the whole Eastern Hemisphere; we must say something of the otherwise widely distributed groups which are absent. Among mammalia we have first the order Insectivora, eptirely absent CHAP. III.] ---- ZOOLOGICAL HEGIONS. 51 from South A . A merica and mthc nca' though . a fe w specw· s arc ..rl Otmd m• Central wholly want!· e West Indies; tho Viverridre or civet family is ng, as are e £ f while the swine th 1 very orm o sheep, oxen, or antelopes. world are repre~ent~de ~phants,. a~d t~e rhinoceroses of the old Among b' d y the dmunutive peccaries and tapirs. Ir s we have t t. b flycatchers shrike b' o no ICe t e absence of tits true species in ' the Ansd, su)n - 1llr ds ' starrm gs, 1a r k s (e xcept a so' litary warblers are very s es ' ro erds' bee -eater s, and Ph easants, wb ile carce, an the almost 1' are represented by as· .1 . . . cosmopo 1tan wagtails W mg e speCies of p1p1t. e must also notice the preponderance of 1 types among the animals of South A . ow or archaic . 1 menca. Edent t marsupw s, and rodents form th . . a es, mammalia · while h h. h e maJonty of the terrestrial hoofed a .' 1 s~c I~ er groups as the carnivora and 1 mma s are exceedmgly deficient. Amon()' b' ·d ow type of Passeres, characterised by th b o u s a singi 0' 1 · · e a sence of the . no muse es, IS excessively prevalent th of the ant-tbr h ' e enormous groups . us es, tyrants, tree-creepers, manakin d chatterers belonging to it Th p· . ( s, an . '1 . e wanre a lower group) 1 prevai to a far greater extent th . . a so in variety of forms and n b an fm any. oth~r regions, both urn er o speCies . and th h. f re. presentatives of the gan ·m aceous b.i rds-th'e curassowe s c led tmamous, are believed to be allied the former t th b an turkey f A t r h ' 0 e rush-s o us ra Ia, t e latter (very remotely) to the ostriches two of the least developed types of birds. ' f W~ethlerl.;he~efore, we consider its richness in peculiar forms o a~Im~ I e, Its enormous variety of species, its numerous defiCilenCies as compared with other parts of the world or th pre. va ence of a low t ype of orgam. sat.w n amonO' its ' hiO'heer ammaJs, the Neotropical region stands out as und~ubted] oth moIs t remat'rlk able of the 0O 'reat zoolooo· ical d I· V·I S·i ons of t h e earyt h e .n r.ep I es, amphibia, fresh-water fishes, and insects thi regwn Is eq~a1ly peculiar, but we need not refer to these' heres our only obJect now being to establish by a suffi . t b ' of well k d .1 Cien num er of ~ no~n ;n easl y remembered examples, the distinctness £ eac regwn rom all others, and its unity as a whole The ormer has now been sufficiently demonstrated b t 't . b we11 to say a few words as to the latter point, l . u I may e E 2 |
