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sub-region. It is allied to the European nutcracker; but aocording to the American ornithologist, Dr. Coues, has also resemblances to the jays, and certainly forms a distinct genus. The grizzly bear (Ursus ferox) in the background, is one of the characteristic animals of the Californian highlands.

II. The Central, or Rocky Mountain Sub-region.

Its

This extensive district is, for the greater part of its extent, from 2,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea, and is excessively arid; and, except in the immediate vicinity of streams and on some of the higher slopes of the mountains, is almost wholly treeless. zoology is therefore peculiar. Many of the most characteristic genera and families of the Eastern States are absent; while a number of curious desert and alpine forms give it a character of its own, and render it very interesting to the naturalist.

Mammalia. The remarkable prong-horned antelope (Antilocapra), the mountain goat (Aplocerus), the mountain sheep or bighorn (Ovis montana), and the prairie-dog (Cynomys), one of the Rodentia, are peculiar to this sub-region; while the family of the Saccomyidæ, or pouched rats, is represented by many forms and is very characteristic. Here is also the chief home of the bison. The glutton (Gulo) and marmot (Lagomys) enter it from the north; while it has the racoon (Procyon), flying squirrel (Sciuropterus), ground squirrel (Tamias), pouched marmot (Spermophilus) and jumping mouse (Jaculus) in common with the countries east or west of it.

Plate XIX. Illustrative of the Zoology of the Central Plains or Prairies.-We here introduce four of the most characteristic mammalia of the great American plains or prairies, three of them being types confined to North America. The graceful animals on the left are the prong-horned antelopes (Antilocapra americana), whose small horns, though hollow like those of the antelopes, are shed annually like those of the deer. To the right we have the prairie-dogs of the trappers (Cynomys ludovicianus) which, as will be easily seen, are rodents, and allied to the marmots of the European Alps. Their burrows are numerous on the prairies, and the manner in which they perch

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