D•ientia in, 'Ala la ya southern China. Sumatra. .lava, Borneo, the Philippines, and included islands.
.1 ash•n/iira Region,—Au•:tralia and the islands north of it fr.on Celebes eastward, New Zealand and the South Sea archipelagoes, This was di vided from the Oriental region by Wallace's lim a name gracefully given by Huxley in 1868 to the zoOgeographical demareation discovered by A. II. Wallace (Ibis, London. 1859: Prof.( eilings Zoologi•al Society, London, 1863; lIalay Lfindon and New York, IS69), which passes along the narrow straits between the Philippine and Sulu islands, and southward between (Adobe; and Borneo, Lombok lind Java. Ile found the birds mull mammals strik ingly different on opposite sides of this line of deep channels. The great contrast be tween the two divisions of the archipelago." lie informs us, "is nowhere so abruptly exhibited as in passing front the island of Bali to that of Lombok, where the two regions are in closest proximity. . . The strait is here miles wide, so that we may pass in two from one great division of the earth to another, ditier• tug as essentially in their animal life as Europe does from America If we travel from ,lava or Borneo to Celebes or the Moluccas, the dif ferenee is still more striking. In the first the forests abound in monkeys of many kinds. wild cat., deer, civets, and otters, and numerous va rieties of squirrels are constantly met with. In the latter none of these occur, but the prehensile tailed enscus i. aliimst the only terrestrial Mani Mal seen. . The bird-, which are most abundant in the western islands. are NH.dpeck yrs, barbcts, tr. fruit-thrushes, and leaf thrushes; they are seen daily and form the great ornithological feature of the It the eastern islands these are absolutely unknown, he neysliekers and small logic; being the tit st cumuou birds; so that the naturalist feels himself in a new world." l'aleolropical or ) frica south of the Sahara, and Nladagascar.
_Vc(o•cfic ficgion.—North America and the ele vated central region of Mexico.
coiropico/ America, Central _1111crica, and the \Vest hlks.
Each of these region.; Was divided into tour sub regions or In -Africa, •ape UniunY and the southeast forined a province, the t 'mtg.) and Niger basins together another. Mada
gascar and the ..Nlasca role islands a third, and all the rest of the continent south of the Sahara a fourth. In North America, all l'analla north of Lake Huron and the Saskatchewan ‘vas one prov ince, the eastern United states as far as the ventral dry plains formed a second, the Rocky Nlotintain country and 'great basin' a third, and the Pacific Coast the (1ifirt nil su on. For the faunal characteristics of each of these regions. see the :Articles under their names: 1101...%1I•TIC RECIoN; NOTUi;.1.71. The above sketched has proved too artificial. The propriety of separating North _\nierica (nil] Europe and Asia was soon disputed, and they were milted by in a single circumpolar region called llolaret le (or Peri arctic). The oplatorial countries, mostly sepa rated by oceans. cannot -0 easily combined, and fur sonic time the only serious change ill the (-lassie arrangement was the erection of the New Zealand group from secondary to primary rank. Nliich is to be said in favor of this movement. but it seems not to lie generally acceptable.
As knowledge of both the living and fossil ani mals of the southern eont Mein- and islands has increased, and criteria have become largely avail outside the groups of birds and mammals upon which earlier conclusions were mainly based, it becomes more and more apparent that even these regional distinctions are vague. The best opinion at the opening of the twentieth century, following 1111Xley held that only two prime regions might be recognized in zoitgeog raphy—.1refoofra, a northern world. and Voir). ga,t, a southern world. These names, however, are not precisely descriptive. Arctog.ea includes not only this whole Northern Hemisphere, but also 111(4,tropica friea. India, awl the East Nines as far as \Vallnee's Notoga-a is formed of South and Central America and .\11-tralasia. NVithin these primary realms the old -ions seem to hold pretty well. except that North America does not seem separable from Eurasia, both now forming the single 11(1arctie Regina Iq.t,1 of -(11ilellis.