Island Life; Or, The Phenomena and Causes of Insular Faunas and Floras

In reptiles, fishes, insects, and land-shells, Africa is very rich, and possesses an immense number of peculiar forms. These are not sufficiently familiar to require notice in a work of this character, but we may mention a few as mere illustrations: the puff-adders, the most hideous of poisonous snakes; the chameleons, the most remarkable of lizards; the goliath-beetles, the largest and handsomest of the Cetoniidæ; and some of the Achatinæ, which are the largest of all known land-shells.

Definition and Characteristic Groups of the Oriental Region.—The Oriental region comprises all Asia south of the Palæarctic limits, and along with this the Malay Islands as far as the Philippines, Borneo, and Java. It was called the Indian region by Mr. Sclater, but this term has been objected to because the Indo-Chinese and Malayan districts are the richest and most characteristic, while the peninsula of India is the poorest portion of it. The name "Oriental" has therefore been adopted in my work on The Geographical Distribution of Animals as preferable to either Malayan or Indo-Australian, both of which have been proposed, but are objectionable, as being already in use in a different sense.

The great features of the mammals of the Oriental region are, the long-armed apes, the orang-utans, the tiger, the sun-bears and honey-bears, the tapir, the chevrotains or mouse-deer, and the Indian elephant. Its most conspicuous birds are the immense number and variety of babbling-thrushes (Timaliidæ), its beautiful little hill-tits (Liotrichidæ), its green bulbuls (Phyllornithidæ), its many varieties of the crow-family, its beautiful gapers and pittas adorned with the most delicate colours, its great variety of hornbills, and its magnificent Phasianidæ, comprising the peacocks, argus-pheasants, fire-backed pheasants, and jungle-fowl. Many of these are, it is true, absent from the peninsula of Hindostan, but sufficient remain there to ally it with the other parts of the region.

Among the remarkable but less conspicuous forms of mammalia which are peculiar to this region are, monkeys of the genus Presbyter, extending to every part of it; lemurs of three peculiar genera—Nycticebus and Loris (slow lemurs) and Tarsius (spectre lemurs); the flying lemur (Galeopithecus), now classed as a peculiar family of Insectivora and found only in the Malay Islands; the family of the Tupaias, or squirrel-shrews, curious little arboreal Insectivora somewhat resembling squirrels; no less than twelve peculiar genera of the civet family, three peculiar antelopes, five species of rhinoceros, and the round-tailed flying squirrels forming the genus Pteromys.

Of the peculiar groups of birds we can only mention a few. The curious little tailor-birds of the genus Orthotomus are found over the whole region and almost alone serve to characterise it, as do the fine laughing-thrushes, forming the genus Garrulax; while the beautiful grass-green fruit-thrushes (Phyllornis), and the brilliant little minivets (Pericrocotus), are almost equally universal. Woodpeckers are abundant, belonging to a dozen peculiar genera; while gaudy barbets and strange forms of cuckoos and hornbills are also to be met with everywhere. Among game birds, the only genus that is universally distributed, and which may be said to characterise the region, is Gallus, comprising the true jungle-fowl, one of which, Gallus bankiva, is found from the Himalayas and Central India to Malacca, Java, and even eastward to Timor, and is the undoubted origin of almost all our domestic poultry. Southern India and Ceylon each possesses distinct species of jungle-fowl, and a third very handsome green bird (Gallus æneus inhabits Java.)

Reptiles are as abundant as in Africa, but they present no well-known groups which can be considered as specially characteristic. Among insects we may notice the magnificent golden and green Papilionidæ of various genera as being unequalled in the world; while the great Atlas moth is probably the most gigantic of Lepidoptera, being sometimes ten inches across the wings, which are also very broad. Among the beetles the strange flat-bodied Malayan mormolyce is the largest of all the Carabidæ, while the catoxantha is equally a giant among the Buprestidæ. On the whole, the insects of this region probably surpass those of any other part of the world, except South America, in size, variety, and beauty.

Definition and Characteristic Groups of the Australian Region.—The Australian region is so well marked off from the Oriental, as well as from all other parts of the world, by zoological peculiarities, that we need not take up much time in describing it, especially as some of its component islands will come under review at a subsequent stage of our work. Its most important portions are Australia and New Guinea, but it also includes all the Malayan and Pacific Islands to the east of Borneo, Java, and Bali, the Oriental region terminating with the submarine bank on which those islands are situated. The island of Celebes is included in this region from a balance of considerations, but it almost equally well belongs to the Oriental, and must be left out of the account in our general sketch of the zoological features of the Australian region.

The great feature of the Australian region is the almost total absence of all the forms of terrestrial mammalia which abound in the rest of the world, their place being supplied by a great variety of Marsupials. In Australia and New Guinea there are no Insectivora, Carnivora, nor Ungulata, while even the rodents are only represented by a few small rats and mice. In the remoter Pacific Islands mammals are altogether absent (except perhaps in New Zealand), but in the Moluccas and other islands bordering on the Oriental region the higher mammals are represented by a few deer, civets, and pigs, though it is doubtful whether the two former may not have been introduced by man, as was almost certainly the case with the semi-domesticated dingo of Australia.⁸ These peculiarities in the mammalia are so great that every naturalist agrees that Australia must be made a separate region, the only difference of opinion being as to its extent, some thinking that New Zealand should form another separate region; but this question need not now delay us.

In birds Australia is by no means so isolated from the rest of the world, as it contains great numbers of warblers, thrushes, flycatchers, shrikes, crows, and other familiar types of the Eastern Hemisphere; yet a considerable number of the most characteristic Oriental families are absent. Thus there are no vultures, woodpeckers, pheasants, bulbuls, or barbets in the Australian region; and the absence of these is almost as marked a feature as that of cats, deer, or monkeys, among mammalia. The most conspicuous and characteristic birds of the Australian region are, the piping crows; the honey-suckers (Meliphagidæ), a family quite peculiar to the region; the lyre-birds; the great terrestrial kingfishers (Dacelo); the great goat-suckers called more-porks in Australia and forming the genus Podargus; the wonderful abundance of parrots, including such remarkable forms as the white and black cockatoos, and the gorgeously coloured brush-tongued lories; the almost equal abundance of fine pigeons more gaily coloured than any others on the globe; the strange brush-turkeys and mound-builders, the only birds that never sit upon their eggs, but allow them to be hatched, reptile-like, by the heat of the sand or of fermenting vegetable matter; and lastly, the emus and cassowaries, in which the wings are far more rudimentary than in the ostriches of Africa and South America. New Guinea and the surrounding islands are remarkable for their tree-kangaroos, their birds-of-paradise, their raquet-tailed kingfishers, their great crown-pigeons, their crimson lories, and many other remarkable birds. This brief outline being sufficient to show the distinctness and isolation of the Australian region, we will now pass to the consideration of the Western Hemisphere.

Definition and Characteristic Groups of the Nearctic Region.—The Nearctic region comprises all temperate and arctic North America, including Greenland, the only doubt being as to its southern boundary, many northern types penetrating into the tropical zone by means of the highlands and volcanic peaks of Mexico and Guatemala, while a few which are characteristic of the tropics extend northward into Texas and California. There is, however, considerable evidence showing that on the east coast the Rio Grande del Norte, and on the west a point nearly opposite Cape St. Lucas, form the most natural boundary; but instead of being drawn straight across, the line bends to the south-east as soon as it rises on the flanks of the table-land, forming a deep loop which extends some distance beyond the city of Mexico, and perhaps ought to be continued along the higher ridges of Guatemala.

The Nearctic region is so similar to the Palæarctic in position and climate, and the two so closely approach each other at Behring Straits, that we cannot wonder at there being a certain amount of similarity between them—a similarity which some naturalists have so far over-estimated as to think that the two regions ought to be united. Let us therefore carefully examine the special zoological features of this region, and see how far it resembles, and how far differs from, the Palæarctic.

At first sight the mammalia of North America do not seem to differ much from those of Europe or Northern Asia. There are cats, lynxes, wolves and foxes, weasels, bears, elk and deer, voles, beavers, squirrels, marmots, and hares, all very similar to those of the Eastern Hemisphere, and several hardly distinguishable. Even the bison or "buffalo" of the prairies, once so abundant and characteristic, is a close ally of the now almost extinct "aurochs" of Lithuania. Here, then, we undoubtedly find a very close resemblance between the two regions, and if this were all, we should have great difficulty in separating them. But along with these, we find another set of mammals, not quite so conspicuous but nevertheless very important. We have first, three peculiar genera of moles, one of which, the star-nosed mole, is a most extraordinary creature, quite unlike anything else. Then there are three genera of the weasel family, including the well-known skunk (Mephitis), all quite different from Eastern forms. Then we come to a peculiar family of carnivora, the racoons, very distinct from anything in Europe or Asia; and in the Rocky Mountains we find the prong-horn antelope (Antilocapra) and the mountain goat of the trappers (Aplocerus), both peculiar genera. Coming to the rodents we find that the mice of America differ in some dental peculiarities from those of the rest of the world, and thus form several distinct genera; the jumping mouse (Xapus) is a peculiar form of the jerboa family, and then we come to the pouched rats (Geomyidæ), a very curious family consisting of four genera and nineteen species, peculiar to North America, though not confined to the Nearctic region. The prairie dogs (Cynomys), the tree porcupine (Erethizon), the curious sewellel (Haploodon), and the opossum (Didelphys) complete the list of peculiar mammalia which distinguish the northern region of the new world from that of the old. We must add to these peculiarities some remarkable deficiencies. The Nearctic region has no hedgehogs, nor wild pigs, nor dormice, and only one wild sheep in the Rocky Mountains as against twenty species of sheep and goats in the Palæarctic region.

In birds also the similarities to our own familiar songsters first strike us, though the differences are perhaps really greater than in the quadrupeds. We see thrushes and wrens, tits and finches, and what seem to be warblers and flycatchers and starlings in abundance; but a closer examination shows the ornithologist that what he took for the latter are really quite distinct, and that there is not a single true flycatcher of the family Muscicapidæ, or a single starling of the family Sturnidæ in the whole continent, while there are very few true warblers (Sylviidæ), their place being taken by the quite distinct families Mniotiltidæ or wood-warblers, and Vireonidæ or greenlets. In like manner the flycatchers of America belong to the totally distinct family of tyrant-birds, Tyrannidæ, and those that look like starlings to the hang-nests, Icteridæ; and these four peculiar families comprise about a hundred and twenty species, and give a special character to the ornithology of the country. Add to these such peculiar birds as the mocking thrushes (Mimus), the blue jays (Cyanocitta), the tanagers, the peculiar genera of cuckoos (Coccygus and Crotophaga), the humming-birds, the wild turkeys (Meleagris), and the turkey-buzzards (Cathartes), and we see that if there is any doubt as to the mammals of North America being sufficiently distinct to justify the creation of a separate region, the evidence of the birds would alone settle the question.

The reptiles, and some others of the lower animals, add still more to this weight of evidence. The true rattlesnakes are highly characteristic, and among the lizards are several genera of the peculiar American family, the Iguanidæ. Nowhere in the world are the tailed batrachians so largely developed as in this region, the Sirens and the Amphiumidæ forming two peculiar families, while there are nine peculiar genera of salamanders, and two others allied respectively to the Proteus of Europe and the Sieboldia or giant salamander of Japan. There are seven peculiar families and about thirty peculiar genera of fresh-water fishes; while the fresh-water molluscs are more numerous than in any other region, more than thirteen hundred species and varieties having been described.

Combining the evidence derived from all these classes of animals, we find the Nearctic region to be exceedingly well characterised, and to be amply distinct from the Palæarctic. The few species that are common to the two are almost all arctic, or, at least, northern types, and may be compared with those desert forms which occupy the debatable ground between the Palæarctic, Ethiopian, and Oriental regions. If, however, we compare the number of species, which are common to the Nearctic and Palæarctic regions with the number common to the western and eastern extremities of the latter region, we shall find a wonderful difference between the two cases; and if we further call to mind the number of important groups characteristic of the one region but absent from the other, we shall be obliged to admit that the relation that undoubtedly exists between the faunas of North America and Europe is of a very distinct nature from that which connects together Western Europe and North-eastern Asia in the bonds of zoological unity.

Definition and Characteristic Groups of the Neotropical Region.—The Neotropical region requires very little definition, since it comprises the whole of America south of the Nearctic 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 mammalia—the prehensile-tailed monkeys and the marmosets, the blood-sucking 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 sugar-birds, forming the family Cœrebidæ; the immense and wonderfully varied group of tanagers; the exquisite little manakins, and the gorgeously-coloured chatterers; the host of tree-creepers of the family Dendrocolaptidæ; the wonderful toucans; the puff-birds, 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 Neotropical 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, entirely absent from South America, though a few species are found in Central America and the West Indies; the Viverridæ or civet family is wholly wanting, as are every form of sheep, oxen, or antelopes; while the swine, the elephants, and the rhinoceroses of the old world are represented by the diminutive peccaries and tapirs.

Among birds we have to notice the absence of tits, true flycatchers, shrikes, sunbirds, starlings, larks (except a solitary species in the Andes), rollers, bee-eaters, and pheasants, while warblers are very scarce, and the almost cosmopolitan wagtails are represented by a single species of pipit.

We must also notice the preponderance of low or archaic types among the animals of South America. Edentates, marsupials, and rodents form the majority of the terrestrial mammalia; while such higher groups as the carnivora and hoofed animals are exceedingly deficient. Among birds a low type of Passeres, characterised by the absence of the singing muscles, is excessively prevalent, the enormous groups of the ant-thrushes, tyrants, tree-creepers, manakins, and chatterers belonging to it. The Picariæ (a lower group) also prevail to a far greater extent than in any other regions, both in variety of forms and number of species; and the chief representatives of the gallinaceous birds—the curassows and tinamous, are believed to be allied, the former to the brush-turkeys of Australia, the latter (very remotely) to the ostriches, two of the least developed types of birds.

Whether, therefore, we consider its richness in peculiar forms of animal life, its enormous variety of species, its numerous deficiencies as compared with other parts of the world, or the prevalence of a low type of organisation among its higher animals, the Neotropical region stands out as undoubtedly the most remarkable of the great zoological divisions of the earth.

In reptiles, amphibia, fresh-water fishes, and insects, this region is equally peculiar, but we need not refer to these here, our only object now being to establish by a sufficient number of well-known and easily remembered examples, the distinctness of each region from all others, and its unity as a whole. The former has now been sufficiently demonstrated, but it may be well to say a few words as to the latter point.

The only outlying portions of the region about which there can be any doubt are—Central America, or that part of the region north of the Isthmus of Panama, the Antilles or West Indian Islands, and the temperate portion of South America including Chili and Patagonia.

In Central America, and especially in Mexico, we have an intermixture of South American and North American animals, but the former undoubtedly predominate, and a large proportion of the peculiar Neotropical groups extend as far as Costa Rica. Even in Guatemala and Mexico we have howling and spider-monkeys, coati-mundis, tapirs, and armadillos; while chatterers, manakins, ant-thrushes, and other peculiarly Neotropical groups of birds are abundant. There is therefore no doubt as to Mexico forming part of this region, although it is comparatively poor, and exhibits the intermingling of temperate and tropical forms.

The West Indies are less clearly Neotropical, their poverty in mammals as well as in most other groups being extreme, while great numbers of North American birds migrate there in winter. The resident birds, however, comprise trogons, sugar-birds, chatterers, with many humming-birds and parrots, representing eighteen peculiar Neotropical genera; a fact which decides the region to which the islands belong.

South temperate America is also very poor as compared with the tropical parts of the region, and its insects contain a considerable proportion of north temperate forms. But it contains armadillos, cavies and opossums; and its birds all belong to American groups, though, owing to the inferior climate and deficiency of forests, a number of the families of birds peculiar to tropical America are wanting. Thus there are no manakins, chatterers, toucans, trogons, or motmots; but there are abundance of hang-nests, tyrant-birds, ant-thrushes, tree-creepers, and a fair proportion of humming-birds, tanagers and parrots. The zoology is therefore thoroughly Neotropical, although somewhat poor; and it has a number of peculiar forms of strictly Neotropical types—as the chinchillas, alpacas, &c., which are not found in the tropical regions except in the high Andes.

Comparison of Zoological Regions with the Geographical Divisions of the Globe.—Having now completed our survey of the great zoological regions of the globe, we find that they do not differ so much from the old geographical divisions as our first example might have led us to suppose. Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, North America, and South America, really correspond, each to a zoological region, but their boundaries require to be modified more or less considerably; and if we remember this, and keep their extensions or limitations always in our mind, we may use the terms "South American" or "North American," as being equivalent to Neotropical and Nearctic, without much inconvenience, while "African" and "Australian" equally well serve to express the zoological type of the Ethiopian and Australian regions. Europe and Asia require more important modifications. The European fauna does indeed well represent the Palæarctic in all its main features, and if instead of Asia we say tropical Asia we have the Oriental region very fairly defined; so that the relation of the geographical with the zoological primary divisions of the earth is sufficiently clear. In order to make these relations visible to the eye and more easily remembered, we will put them into a tabular form:

The following arrangement of the regions will indicate their geographical position, and to a considerable extent their relation to each other.