The geographical distribution of animals, with a study of the relations ...

chap, xii.] THE ORIENTAL REGION. 321among Brenthidre ; with an immense number and variety ofAnthotribidse, Heteromera, Malacoderma, and Phytophaga.The Oriental Sub-regions.The four sub-regions into which we have divided the Orientalregion, are very unequal in extent, and perhaps more so inproductiveness, but they each have well-marked special features,and serve well to exhibit the main zoological characteristics ofthe region. As they are all tolerably well defined and theirfaunas comparatively well-known, their characteristics will begiven with rather more than usual detail.7". Hindostan, or Indian Sub-region.This includes the whole peninsula of India from the foot of theHimalayas on the north to somewhere near Seringapatam on thesouth, the boundary of the Ceylonese sub-region being unsettled.The deltas of the Ganges and Brahmaputra mark its easternlimits, and it probably reaches to about Cashmere in the northwest,and perhaps to the valley of the Indus further south ; butthe great desert tract to the east of the Indus forms a transitionto the south Palaearctic sub-region. Perhaps on the whole theIndus may be taken as a convenient boundary. Many Indiannaturalists, especially Mr. Blyth and Mr. Blanford, are impressedwith the relations of the greater part of this sub-region to theEthiopian region, and have proposed to divide it into severalzoological districts dependent on differences of climate and vegetation,and characterized by possessing faunas more or less alliedeither to the Himalayan or the Ethiopian type. But these subdivisionsappear far too complex to be useful to the general student,and even were they proved to be natural, would be beyondthe scope of this work. I agree, however, with Mr. Elwes inthinking that they really belong to local rather than to geographicaldistribution, and confound " station " with " habitat."Wherever there is a marked diversity of surface and vegetationthe productions of a country will correspondingly differ; thegroups peculiar to forests,for example, will be absent from open