the skunk and other two genera of weasels are found nowhere but in Nearctic lands. Then there are the carnivorous racoons, which are likewise special forms; and among the rodents, the pouched rats (Saccomyida), the jumping mouse, the tree porcupines, and prairie dogs are peculiar. The Insectivora number three peculiar genera of moles. The pronghorn antelope (fig. 18) and the mountain goat are absolutely Nearctic. The opossums complete the list of peculiar mammals of the region; whilst the absentees may be summarised in the remark that the Nearctic region is chiefly notable for its absence of wild horses and pigs, dormice, oxen, and hedgehogs, and true mice and rats (Mus). The single native sheep, as against the twenty species of sheep and goats of the Palearctic region, also typifies a remarkable deficiency of a widely distributed quadruped family.

The small birds of the Nearctic region are, as a rule, well marked off from those of the Palearctic province. The North American warblers belong to different families from the Palearctic forms; the Nearctic flycatchers belong likewise to different groups from those at home; and the starlings are really "hangnests," or Icterida. The birds peculiar to the Nearctic region are in turn well defined. The mocking-birds and blue-jays, the special cuckoos and the tanagers; the humming-birds; the wild turkeys and turkey buzzards, are all limited to this province. The humming-birds of the New World present certain extraordinary limitations in their distribution within the limits of the two regions comprising the Western Hemisphere. The peaks and valleys of the Andes possess each its own species. On Pinchincha a peculiar species occurs, 14,000 feet above the sea level, and nowhere else; another has been found only inside the crater of the extinct volcano of Chiriqui in Veragua; a third occurs only on Chimborazo ; and of another species only one specimen has ever been seen, the bird in question having been obtained, over forty years ago, in the Andes of Northern Peru. Again, the presence of such distinct reptiles as the rattlesnakes among serpents, and the true iguanas among lizards, is highly characteristic of Nearctic lands. This region, lastly, may be described as the home of the tailed amphibians or newt-tribe.

Nine families-two peculiar to the region-and fifteen special genera represent the newts and salamanders, which include in their ranks the sirens, amphiumas, and two forms related to the European proteus of the caves of Carniola and the giant salamander of Japan respectively. There are also five families of fresh-water fishesincluding two families of the rare ganoids-to be enumerated amongst the specific animal belongings of this large area.

There can be no question of the clear distinctness of the Nearctic region from all other regions, including the Palearctic, to which, however, in the general characters of its animal life, it is so closely allied. The species that are really common are northern or Arctic forms, a fact which to some extent would seem to point to former land connections in the north as a cause of the similarity. Notwithstanding the likeness in question, the Palearctic and Nearctic regions are essentially distinct; and there are no reasonable grounds

for any scheme of uniting their varied interests in one common biological territory.

The Neotropical region extends from the southern limits of the Nearctic region, and includes the remainder of the New World-that is, Central and South America-with the West Indian Islands as a subregion of the territory. No region of the world, if we except the Australian province, presents such a variety of interesting biological features as the Neotropical province. Whether regarded in the light of its existing life and of the diversity of animal and

plant species it presents to view, or studied in the relations of its present animals to the geological past, the Neotropical area equals, if, indeed, it does not in some features excel in interest, the great island-continent itself. The monkeys of the Neotropical region, for example, are totally different from those of any other region of the globe. They are broad-nosed, and usually possess prehensile tails,

adapting them for an active life amid the dense forests of the region. Those apes have no callosities; their thumbs are less perfectly developed than in Old World apes; and cheek-pouches are also wanting. They include (fig. 19) the spider monkeys, howlers, capuchins, marmosets, and many other peculiar and special forms. The bats are likewise peculiar, in that they are represented by the famous vampires and other blood-sucking species. The rodents are the chinchillas, the curious capybara, the pacas, and agoutis and tree porcupines, possessing, like the apes, prehensile tails. The carnivora include the racoons,

which take the place in this region of the weasels of the Old World. Deer and llamas represent the ruminants of the region; and the tapir and peccaries represent other forms of hoofed quadrupeds. It is the

group of the Edentate quadrupeds, however, which finds in Neotropical territory its peculiar home. If the marsupial kangaroos and wombats characterise Australia as their headquarters, no less typically in South America do the sloths, true ant-eaters (fig. 20), and armadillo (fig. 21) represent the fulness of Edentate development. With the exception of a few species of scaly ant-eaters or pangolins (fig. 22) occurring in the Ethiopian and Oriental regions, and the "aardvark " or ground hog of South

Africa, the Edentate mammals are absolutely confined to the Neotropical region; and it is in the recent deposits of South America that we likewise discover the fossil remains of those huge extinct edentata, of which the Megatherium, Mylodon, and Glyptodon are wellknown representatives.

Last of all, the marsupial opossums, an apparent remnant of Australian life, find their home in the Neotropical area. As remarkable exceptions and absentees from the lists of South American quadrupeds may be mentioned the Insectivora, of which order-represented by

the moles, shrews, and hedgehogs-not an example exists in this area, if we except a little shrew in the north, and one genus in the West Indian Islands. Then, also, we may note the absence of sheep and oxen; there are none of the civets, so widely spread over other areas; and there is an absence of the large carnivora, and of the elephants and rhinoceroses of the Old World.

Equally notable are the birds of the region. The smaller Passerine birds of the region, curiously enough, want the singing muscles of the larynx, as a rule. To this group belong the ant-thrushes, tree creepers, tyrants, chatterers, and manakins. Other typical birds of this area are the tanagers, toucans, puff

birds, todies, and mot-
mots. No less typical
are the macaws, the
curious curassows and
tinamous, the sun bit-
terns and the horned
screamers; and the
humming-birds are
likewise among the
veritable gems
gems of

South American orni-
thology. The hum-
ming-birds, ranging

from Sitka to Patagonia, from the plains to the towering heights of the Andes, are absolutely confined to the New World. "No naturalist," says Mr. Wallace, " can study in detail this single family of birds, without being profoundly impressed with the vast antiquity of the South American continent, its long isolation from the rest of the land surface of the globe, and the persistence through countless ages of all the conditions requisite for the development and increase of varied forms of animal life." The curassows are distant relatives of the mound-birds of Australia, and the tinamous possess affinities with the ostrich-tribe itself; whilst in such peculiar Neotropical birds as the Cariama of Brazil, the sun bitterns and horned screamers, we see types of birds, either intermediate between other families, or standing solitary and isolated in the bird class, testifying again by these peculiarities of structure to the lapse of time which has passed since their evolution from some common and now extinct type.

The snakes of the region are numerous and peculiar, and the lizards are equally varied. The true crocodiles and the New World alligators coexist in this region, and the tortoises attain considerable development in this region. The tailed newts are well-nigh absent, however; frogs and toads are abundant; and the fishes of South America present us with numerous types, many of the species

and 120 genera at least being confined to the waters of the

area.

Central America, as might be expected, shows less clearly the characteristic features of the southern portion of the continent. There we find a commingling of Nearctic with Neotropical forms, but the latter predominate, and as far north as Mexico we may trace the howling monkeys and armadillos of the southern region.

In the case of the West Indian Islands, forming the Antillean subregion of the Neotropical province, however, we meet with greater variations from the fauna of the continent. No better instance of the apparently arbitrary, but nevertheless logical and scientific, method of mapping off the earth's surface for biological purposes, could well be selected, than the zoologist's classification of the West Indian Islands. For, encircling Cuba, Hayti, Jamaica, Porto Rico, St. Vincent, Barbadoes, and many other islets in his biological line, he places outside this line Tobago, Trinidad, Margarita, and Curaçoa. The elimination of these latter islands from the "zoological" West Indies, whilst they form characteristic islands of the geographical Antilles, is readily explicable. Trinidad and its three neighbouring islands in their zoology differ entirely from the other West Indian Islands, but agree with the adjoining coast of South America in the character of their included animals and plants. Scientifically and zoologically, they are therefore parts of South America; they belong to the Brazilian sub-region, and not to the West Indian sub-province. Their affinity to the continent in the matter of their botany and zoology, and their wide divergence from the other West Indian Islands, point clearly to their relatively late detachment from the South American coasts. Their constitution as islands was attained, in other words, at a date much more recent than that at which the. other islands of the group received their status as independent lands. Of Trinidad and its neighbouring islets nothing peculiar in a zoological sense can be detailed. We may, therefore, turn to the typical West Indies themselves.

Rich in vegetation and all that contributes to the support of animal life, the West Indies are poor in representatives of the higher groups. But they compensate the zoological mind for poverty in numbers by peculiarities of type. No apes or carnivora are native to the West Indies, and the characteristic edentates of South America -the sloths, ant-eaters, and armadillos-are likewise wholly absent. But bats are abundant, and the rodents are peculiar. Capromys, one of these rodents, inhabits Cuba, Jamaica; and Plagiodontia is found in Hayti alone. These two genera are thus exclusively limited to the West Indies. In addition, an agouti is found in St. Vincent, and other islands; and a rare species of mouse (Hesperomys) is found in Hayti and Martinique. If the West Indian rodents are peculiar,